


The Whispers of the Dead

by Cynder2013



Series: Sisters by the Styx [5]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, Virals Series - Kathy Reichs
Genre: Corpses, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dissociation, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mentions of Panic Attacks, Murder, POV First Person, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 25,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24012139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder2013/pseuds/Cynder2013
Summary: A family vacation in Charleston, South Carolina seems like it will be a lot of fun (assuming Zeus doesn't blast the plane out of the sky), but people dying is sure to put a damper in it. An old enemy has to be the one responsible, but catching him is going to be hard, especially if the Virals and the demigods don't work together. But they have to keep their secrets...right?
Relationships: Ben Blue/Victoria "Tory" Brennan, Leo Valdez/Sapphire Banks (PJO/HoO OC), Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: Sisters by the Styx [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719322
Comments: 28
Kudos: 8





	1. Shelton

_Wednesday, March 9, 2016-Downtown Charleston, South Carolina_

_The man was walking down the street. There were people all around him, bustling, busy and so very alive. It was a wonderful change from where he’d been staying._

_He took a deep breath, catching just a hint of the sea in the air. He’d missed that, fresh ocean air. Well, not completely fresh, it was still a city after all, but, again, it was a nice change from where he’d been staying._

_A dark-haired woman who was rushing down the sidewalk bumped into him. She muttered a sorry before running off._

_The man cracked his knuckles and looked back at the woman. She would have been perfect, almost absolutely perfect, but he had other business to attend to first._

_And besides, she was_ almost _perfect._

_Checking the date on a newspaper as he passed the box, he smiled. It was almost three years since he had been imprisoned. The time was just right for a game._

* * *

**_Shelton_ **

Tory, Ben, Hi, Coop and I were out on Ben’s boat, his pride and joy, a sixteen foot Boston whaler named _Sewee,_ when I told them the news.

“Your parents said what now?” Hi asked. “I’m pretty sure I heard you wrong.”

Ben and Tory both rolled their eyes in complete unison, like some sort of advanced couple mind-reading was going on. I mean, they could have been communicating through Pack channels, but with all of us right there that would have just been rude.

See, my friends and I, we’re different. It’s a long story that involves a lot of felonies and a lot more nearly dying. The short version is we got sick, we got these powers, then we lost them and now we’ve got new powers that aren’t as strong but are on all the time. We’re like those werewolves from _Bitten_ only in human form. We even have Tory as the only female.

“Why do you think this is such a bad idea?” Tory asked Hi.

“More importantly,” Ben said, turning to me, “why did you have to tell us on a boat in thirty-two degree weather?”

Ben loves any excuse to take his boat out. When he was complaining about the weather you knew it was bad. Heck, even Coop was complaining, and he has fur.

Coop is Tory’s pet wolfdog. The rest of us aren’t _that_ wolf. 

“My parents are turning the third floor into a guest bedroom,” I explained. “I didn’t think you’d want to be around when they found Hi’s stash of _Playboy_ s _._ ”

“Those are _National Geographic_ s,” Hi said sternly. “Shame on you, sir.”

For some reason my house had become our default hangout when the temperature had started dipping consistently below freezing and we hadn’t moved out yet. 

“Anyway, your cousins, are they younger than us or something?” Tory asked as the youngest humanoid there.

“Worse,” Hi said. “They’re our age.”

Ben raised his eyebrows. “These are your cousins from Canada, right? Because I remember them being a lot of fun. I mean, we were ten or something, but still.”

Hi shook his head frantically. “You remember wrong, my friend.”

Tory leaned towards me and whispered, “What happened?”

“Whisper chased Hi up a tree after he tried to pet her like my cousin did,” I whispered back. “He was up there for hours.”

“It was one hour,” Hi corrected. “And that wolf was totally normal before your cousins came.”

Werewolf superpowers, remember? It was useless to whisper.

“Whisper is a wild animal,” Tory lectured. “Shelton’s cousin is lucky she didn’t get hurt.”

“We can’t keep calling them ‘Shelton’s cousins’. Give us names, Shelton,” Ben ordered.

I nodded. “Amber and Sapphire are around our age, seventeen. They’re twins. Richard is four years younger, I think.” 

“And when are they coming?” Tory asked.

“Next week,” I said.

Tory grinned. “During school break. Should be fun.”

I hoped it would be. It had been seven years since Uncle Harrold and Aunt Mariko last came to visit, so I didn’t actually know my cousins that well. I would hate not to get along with them when we had to spend a week together.

“We’re going to get to meet them, right?” Ben asked. “I mean, we could leave you alone while they’re here.”

“No way!” I said. “You guys are my family too.”

“This band is not breaking up,” Hi declared. “Not even for a week.”


	2. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

I went with my parents on Sunday to pick up my aunt, uncle and cousins from the airport. My dad had borrowed Tory’s dad’s new SUV and my mom was driving our car so that we would have enough space for all eight of us and the luggage of five people.

The arrivals waiting area was packed. The smell of so many people, with lots of perfume and flowers, was starting to make my nose itch. 

“There they are,” Dad finally exclaimed.

I looked in the direction that he and Mom were waving. I recognized Aunt Mariko and Uncle Harrold from some pictures that Mom and Dad had. They hadn’t changed much in seven years, and Mom and Aunt Mariko are identical twins so they were identical, obviously. I just assumed that the two girls and one boy walking with them were Amber, Sapphire and Richard, because they looked nothing like how I remembered them.

“Nelson!” Uncle Harrold called once they had gotten closer. “Lorelei! It’s been too long.”

“You’re the ones who decided to move to the frozen north, little brother,” Dad joked.

Uncle Harrold rolled his eyes. “Blame Aunt Elfreda for that one, and be happy you’re not actually related to her.”

My dad and Uncle Harrold are half-brothers. Yes, my family is that weird. Uncle Harrold’s Aunt Elfreda is his mom’s sister. She’s supposed to be an absolute terror and I am so glad I’ve never had to meet her.

Mom smiled and gave Aunt Mariko a hug. “How’s the shop?”

Aunt Mariko smiled back. “Doing well. How are you?”

“Good,” Mom said. “Shelton hasn’t gotten into trouble lately.”

That was only because Tory hadn’t dragged the Virals into any crazy adventures lately. My abilities to get into trouble on my own are lacking.

Uncle Harrold looked at his children. “Don’t be shy, kids.”

One of the girls looked at us through her hair and mumbled something. The other girl rolled her eyes.

“Hi Aunt Lorelei, hi Uncle Nelson, hi Shelton,” the second girl said with a smile. “I’m Amber, she’s Sapphire, and you can probably tell us apart.”

Amber had brown hair, Sapphire had black hair. Amber had brown skin, Sapphire had white skin. It was pretty easy to tell them apart. They’re practically the perfect example of fraternal twins.

Amber looked at her sister. “Sapphire doesn’t like planes.”

“You wouldn’t either, if you were me,” Sapphire said hoarsely.

Mom gave Amber and Sapphire hugs, and then she said, “Shelton, come say hello.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” Richard said. “I’m Richie.”

“Hello, Richie,” Mom said, giving him a hug. “How’s school?”

“Okay,” Richie said. “I’m on the soccer team.”

Dad patted him on the shoulder. “That’s great!”

Richie shrugged. “It’s okay. Sapphire won’t teach me to sword fight.”

“Wait, you sword fight?” I asked Sapphire. “For how long?”

She nodded. “Going on four years.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

Sapphire shrugged, but I thought I saw her smiling behind her hair. “It’s okay.”

“So, are we ready to go?” Dad asked Uncle Harrold. “It’s a long way back to Morris Island.”

“Not yet,” Uncle Harrold said. “Do you remember how I asked you if you had room for one more?”

“One more?” I asked. Dad hadn’t said anything about that.

“Who are we waiting for?” Mom asked.

Sapphire looked up suddenly. I followed the direction her head turned and saw a wiry man wearing a tool belt walking in our direction. When he reached us he put one arm around Sapphire and held his free hand out towards my dad.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m Leo, Sapphire’s boyfriend.”

Mom and Dad looked as surprised as I was.

“Uh, hello,” Dad said as he shook Leo’s hand. “Nice to meet you?”

“I hope so,” Leo said. “As long as you’re not like the infamous Great-aunt Elfreda everything should be cool.”

Dad cracked a smile. “Nope, nothing like her.”

“Cool,” Leo repeated. “You’re Uncle Nelson, right? Like Nelson Mandela. Were you named after him?”

“Probably,” Dad said. I would be more surprised if he wasn’t named after Nelson Mandela.

“I’m Lorelei,” Mom said as Leo moved to shake her hand. “And this is our son, Shelton.”

“Hi,” I said.

Leo and I shook hands. It didn’t look like a crushing handshake but it felt like he was going to break all of the bones in my hand. His hand was also really hot, like he’d just been holding it under boiling water. 

“Nice to meet you, Shelton,” Leo said.

I nodded and shook my hand out after he’d let go.

Leo looked at Aunt Mariko. “Were you getting ready to go?”

“We were waiting for you,” Sapphire said. “Was there trouble?”

Leo shook his head. To a normal person he would have looked completely relaxed, but I could see that he was just a little bit tense, like he was prepared to run at a moment’s notice.

The wolf in me saw that he was ready to fight, which was a little freaky.

“Nico called,” Leo said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

Sapphire nodded with a slight grimace. Was it a bad thing for Nico to call?

“We’re ready to go then,” Uncle Harrold said.

Dad led the way out of the arrivals area and to the cars. Sapphire and Leo fell behind the rest of us and were whispering to each other in a language that sometimes sounded like Spanish but mostly didn’t. It was weird, and I couldn’t ask what they were speaking because I was too far away for a normal human to hear them.

“So, Shelton, how’s school?” Aunt Mariko asked.

I shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m ready to be done.”

The stuffy private school that Hi, Tory and I went to was getting, well, stuffy, more stuffy than usual. I almost envied Ben for getting to go to the military academy. Almost.

“Do you know where you’re going for college?” Amber wanted to know.

“I’m still weighing my options,” I said.

Tory and Ben had their colleges all picked out since last year. Basically Tory chose her dream school and Ben picked the closest one to her’s that would accept him. Hi and I were still trying to figure out where we were going. Just thinking about breaking up the pack made everyone feel twitchy, but we didn’t all have the same dream school.

Amber nodded. “Sapphire and I are doing another semester before we start university. Sapphire already knows where she wants to go though.”

“Where’s that?” Mom asked Sapphire.

Sapphire didn’t reply. She and Leo were too busy with their secret conversation.

Uncle Harrold coughed. “Sapphire.”

Sapphire looked up with wide eyes. “Sorry, what?”

Mom repeated her question. “I asked which college you want to go to.”

“Oh, New Rome University,” Sapphire said dismissively.

My jaw practically hit the floor. New Rome University is a school that is impossible to get into. Plenty of people from our stuffy private school had applied and none of them had ever been accepted, no matter how high their SAT score was.

“Really?” Dad asked.

Sapphire nodded. “They’ve got good biology programs, and the campus is nice.”

At that point my metaphorical jaw was somewhere near the Earth’s core.

“That’s school is like a myth,” I said. “How did you get to see the campus?”

“My cousin goes there,” Leo said. “She gave us a tour over the summer.”

My jaw was now out the other side of the Earth’s core. They knew someone who went to New Rome University? That was amazing. That was insane. That was impossible.

While I struggled to make my brain work again, Mom unlocked our car and started loading suitcases inside. Leo stepped up to help her and Dad before the rest of us had a chance and they had all the suitcases loaded into the car and the van in mere seconds.

“You and the girls can come with me, Mariko,” Mom said. “I’m sure Nelson will want to talk about football or something equally exciting.” She and Aunt Mariko laughed.

I saw Amber and Sapphire look at each other. Sapphire’s hair was covering the half of her face that was facing me so I couldn’t see her expression, but Amber responded to whatever it was by looking pointedly at her backpack. Sapphire shook her head and Amber scowled.

Richie was also watching his sisters. “I think Sapphire wants to stay with Leo,” he said.

“Richie!” Amber and Sapphire complained.

Sapphire looked at her parents and then at Leo. “I am not a needy girlfriend.”

Leo smiled. “I know.” He said something in the language that mostly didn’t sound like Spanish and Sapphire giggled.

“Don’t let any of them hear you say that,” Sapphire said.

Leo shrugged. “I’m not naming names.”

“Are you two done being cutesy?” Amber demanded. “We’re going on an adventure!”

“That was only in the movies,” Sapphire called after her as Amber climbed into the car.

“We can’t all be book nerds like you!” Amber called back.

Leo grabbed Sapphire’s hand before she could dive into the car after her sister. “She’s not wrong and your anger is misdirected.” Sapphire sighed and nodded.

I climbed into the SUV after Sapphire and Leo. They were whispering to each other in not-Spanish again and Sapphire kept touching the silver ring she was wearing over black gloves. It took a minute or two before I noticed that the ring was shaped like a skull.

As Mom had predicted, Dad and Uncle Harrold started talking about football for a bit, arguing about which team they should be supporting like I remembered them doing a lot the last time I had seen them together. Then Dad seemed to remember that there were other people in the car. He looked at us in the review mirror and asked, “So, Leo, am I going to have to find somewhere to hide your body?”


	3. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

The only name that I could find for the smell that filled the SUV was adrenaline. Sapphire reached a hand out over the shadow she was casting on the door like she was going to grab something and Leo started to pull something out of his tool belt.

Uncle Harrold cleared his throat. “That was a joke, wasn’t it Nelson?”

“Course it was a joke,” Dad said. “Something wrong?”

“Well...” Uncle Harrold started. He looked back at Sapphire and Leo.

“My grandmother tried to kill me,” Leo said flatly. “We don’t talk about it.”

“Oh,” Dad said. How else could he respond to that?

I noticed Sapphire and Leo exchange a worried look before Sapphire asked how far away from home we were. Dad managed to say that it wouldn’t be much longer before he stuttered himself into silence. We spent the rest of the drive quiet. I’m sure I could have come up with some interesting topic for everyone to talk about, but after the adrenaline wore off Sapphire nodded to sleep on Leo’s shoulder and I didn’t have the heart to wake her up.

Dad cleared his throat as he parked the SUV in Tory’s driveway. “Here we are. It’s just a short walk to our place.”

Our small development usually felt like it was the only civilization for miles. The houses were built by the Loggerhead Research Institute for their employees and were connected to the mainland by a single-lane road. Morris Island is only four square miles and is in the east end of nowhere. Ben’s dad had to take Tory, Hi and me to school every day in his boat.

Sapphire and Leo climbed out of the car and immediately looked around. “Nice place,” Leo said. “Very open.”

“No graveyards,” Sapphire said. “I mean, I don’t see any graveyards.”

Dad stretched and started unloading the suitcases. “Well, not many people live here so not many people die here. Not much call for burial plots.”

Dad was kind of wrong about that. It was a burial plot that had led me and my friends into becoming the Virals after all. But that’s another story. A long story.

“That’s good,” Sapphire said. “Graveyards are...I don’t like them.”

Leo coughed and only Sapphire and I heard him say, “Poor Nico.” Sapphire punched him in the arm and told him to shut up, smiling the whole time. I pretended not to have heard him because I wasn’t supposed to be able to from where I was standing. I filed the new information about Nico away for later.

It didn’t take long for us to get the suitcases inside our house while Dad returned the SUV’s keys to Tory’s dad. The two largest suitcases had been put in the SUV and it looked like Uncle Harrold and Leo would be pushing one between them while Sapphire and I struggled (or pretended to struggle in my case) with the other one. Instead, Sapphire grabbed the handle of the suitcase that was nearly as tall as her and pulled it behind her with ease.

“It’s not exactly the world’s heaviest carry-on,” she said with a sly smile when I offered to help. She and Leo shared a laugh that quickly faded. Leo said a few words in the language that wasn’t Spanish and Sapphire nodded.

Uncle Harrold grabbed the smaller of the two suitcases, which he said wasn’t very heavy, and I led the way to our house, where Mom, Aunt Mariko, Amber and Richie were waiting. They had already unloaded their three smaller suitcases and Mom was trying to reconfigure the sleeping arrangements to account for Leo’s unexpected presence.

“I really thought Harrold had told you,” Aunt Mariko apologized.

Mom shook her head. “Why Nelson thought I didn’t need to know...We can put the boys on the third floor and the girls in Shelton’s room. You did clean your room, right Shelton?”

I thought about the clothes I had scattered all over the floor and my lockpick kit sitting in plain sight on my desk. “Sort of.”

Mom sighed. “Clean up and change the bedding before dinner.”

“You got it, boss.” I ran upstairs before Mom could say anything back.


	4. Sapphire IV

The second Shelton disappeared upstairs there was a knock at the door. Sapphire reached out with her Underworld senses and tensed when she felt the presence of someone who was not Uncle Nelson. Things being what they were, Leo noticed immediately. He surreptitiously moved closer to Aunt Lorelei as she opened the door. The pudgy teenager on the other side didn’t look like much of a threat, but it was better to be cautious.

The boy grinned. “Greetings, Lady Devers. Your humble servant begs entrance to your grand chateau.” He finished off with an elaborate bow.

Sapphire and Leo looked at each other and Amber rolled her eyes. This guy was _definitely_ not much of a threat, though his eye-watering outfit could change that to a moderate threat level. Lime green surf shorts and neon pink knee socks were not meant to go together, especially not paired with an ugly Christmas sweater.

Aunt Lorelei sighed and shook her head with a smile. “Come in, Hiram. Shelton is in his room.”

The boy that the Aphrodite cabin (Piper included) would totally murder stepped inside. He looked around at the visiting demigods, magician, and mortals. “Hi, I’m Hi. Hiram if you’re over thirty.”

“Shelton’s friend?” Amber asked.

“The greatest of Shelton’s friends,” Hi said. He chuckled. “I’m going to go distract Shelton if that’s okay with everyone.”

“Don’t you want to know our names?” Richie asked.

“Amber, Sapphire, Richie, Aunt Mariko, Uncle Harrold.” Hi rattled off their names and pointed at each of them until he got to Leo. “Guy I don’t know.”

“Leo,” Leo said.

“Adopted brother?” Hi guessed.

“Boyfriend,” Leo said. “Sapphire’s.” Sapphire was glad that he was still remembering to say boyfriend and not fiancé. He’d been introducing himself to new campers as her fiancé all year according to Lacy and she was worried he wouldn’t be able to break that habit. It was too early into the jetlag to defend getting engaged at seventeen.

Hi shook Leo’s hand before running upstairs. The faint sound of him and Shelton talking was heard almost immediately.

Aunt Lorelei turned back to her guests with a determined look on her face. “Let’s get you settled.”

By the end of the hour long whirlwind that was Aunt Lorelei’s idea of getting settled Sapphire was spending more time yawning than anything else. Her dad had gotten out of it by disappearing with Uncle Nelson to make dinner but the rest of them weren’t so lucky. Even Hi had been press-ganged into helping Shelton clean his room before he went back to his own house.

Sapphire dragged her and Amber’s suitcase into the corner of Shelton’s room that wasn’t filled with his powered-down computer set-up. Then she collapsed on the freshly made bed and made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a groan.

“Our family is crazy,” Amber said, sitting down beside her.

“We already knew that,” Sapphire muttered. “I was in your shadow the whole flight.” The plane had still experienced uncommon turbulence for most of the flight, but since Sapphire wasn’t technically on the plane Zeus had no reason to blast it out of the sky. Hooray for loopholes.

There was a knock at the door. “It’s me,” Leo said. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Sapphire said.

Leo stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He raked his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Your family is—”

“Crazy. We know,” Sapphire and Amber said, in rare unison for the second time that day.

“I was going to say ‘intense’.” Leo sat down on Sapphire’s other side. Sapphire toyed with sitting up but it felt like too much work. 

“What did Nico say?” Amber asked. “You guys have been freaked out since the airport.”

“Leo’s now my bodyguard,” Sapphire said. “That’s all I know. And I’m not freaked out, I’m grumpy.”

“You don’t need a bodyguard,” Amber said.

“Exactly.”

Leo sighed. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“There’s good news?” Amber asked. “Are we talking about the same Nico?”

“Good news,” Sapphire said. If Nico was worried enough that he’d specifically told Leo to keep her safe then the bad news had a good chance of leaving her at least partially catatonic. Best to hear the good news before then.

“Nico and Will finally got back together,” Leo said.

“Finally,” Sapphire said. “It’s only taken five years. And Nico dating Will’s sister. I mean, I like Kyra, but it feels like that belonged in a story that only existed before everyone and their mother found out that Solangelo is a ship that can and should happen.”

Amber and Leo were silent. Sapphire put the effort into sitting up so that she could look at both of them. There were confused looks all around.

“What are you talking about?” Amber asked.

“I have no idea,” Sapphire admitted. “Maybe we should get to the bad news now?”

“Yeah,” Amber said. She turned to Leo. “Bad news please.”

Leo frowned. “You might want to sit down.”

“We’re already sitting down,” Amber said.

“We are?” Leo asked. “Good for us.”

Amber reached behind Sapphire and lightly slapped the back of Leo’s head. “Stop stalling, Vladez. Tell.”

Leo took Sapphire’s hand and breathed in slowly. He looked like he’d been told that he had to hold the weight of the sky.

“Jeremy Asher has escaped from the Fields of Punishment.”


	5. Sapphire V

The scar on Sapphire’s face burned.

“No,” Sapphire said. “No. That’s not possible.”

Leo shook his head. “That’s what Nico told me.”

“No one can escape from the Fields of Punishment,” Sapphire insisted. “My father would never allow it.”

Well, that came dangerously close to sounding like Draco Malfoy. And Sapphire should know, she’d shared a common room with him. 

“Did he say the Underworld or just Punishment?” Amber asked.

Leo grimaced. “I wish it was just Punishment. The Kindly Ones have been searching for days but they haven’t found a trace of Asher in the Underworld.”

Days? They’d been searching for days?

No, it wasn’t possible. People didn’t escape from the Fields of Punishment, especially not living people, and _especially_ especially not living people who had committed crimes against the daughter of the King and Queen of the Underworld.

Amber looked at Sapphire and lowered her voice. “How long has it been?”

“Nico thinks five days,” Leo said. “His father just told him.”

“Five days?” Amber would have shrieked if she hadn’t still been whispering. “What was Hades thinking?”

That was a good question. It was also a dangerous question. Luckily, Hades didn’t seem to be listening in, or they’d probably have ended up in the middle of an earthquake.

Sapphire didn’t realize that she was frantically reciting hymns under her breath until a lingering beam of sunlight came through the window and she felt it physically touch her cheek, drawing her out of the loop of denial that was taking up most of her mind. Apollo had obviously done that, though it was a trick she hadn’t seen him use before.

The stream of Ancient Greek coming out of her mouth stopped and Sapphire took several calming breaths. That was only the rational thing to do when you learned that the man who had cut up your face with a knife, kidnapped you, and planned to rape you before handing you over to an unknown entity that had already killed three girls horribly was walking free, right?

“He’s dead,” Sapphire said, interrupting whatever Amber had been saying.

Amber and Leo stopped their hushed conversation and turned to Sapphire with looks of concern. Sapphire squeezed Leo’s hand. She did her best not to smile because at that moment smiling would not have indicated that she was okay.

She wasn’t okay, but everyone in the room already knew that.

“Asher is dead,” Sapphire said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

The planning of Asher’s murder—or the dissuading of Sapphire from committing said murder if you were Amber and Leo—was interrupted by dinner. Shelton had also been drafted by his dad to help with cooking and once that was done he’d been sent to round everyone up and get them to the dining room. When he knocked on the door Leo and Amber each sent Sapphire one more worried look before all three of them did their best to act relaxed and mostly happy, if not a little sleep deprived. They may still be in the zone of Eastern Standard Time, but dealing with airports and airplane turbulence for more than eight hours was enough to mimic jet-lag when you were a demigod, especially a child of the Underworld.

Uncle Nelson and his sous-chefs had constructed a meal of salad, roasted vegetables, and grilled meat that looked as good as the nymph-prepared food at Camp Half-Blood. Sapphire was surprised not to see a brazier lit for sacrifices, though that was probably mostly because she was still inside her own head and inside her own head tended to be a lot of Camp Half-Blood.

Amber stopped Sapphire before she could grab a plate. “Gloves,” she hissed.

Sapphire quickly excused herself and went to the washroom so that their aunt, uncle, and cousin wouldn’t see her skull ring resizing itself. Their mum didn’t like it when she came to meals wearing her gloves and it was best to get ahead of her drawing attention to it. The question of why Sapphire was wearing gloves might come up. Unfortunately, Sapphire was still occupied with the whole trying to distract herself from planning Asher’s murder and she forgot about one of the other things that could bring up questions she didn’t want to answer: her engagement ring.

It was a normal family dinner at first. The parents were catching up and telling stories while the kids mostly just stared awkwardly at each other and spoke when one of the parents asked them a question. Occasionally Richie and Shelton would exchange technobabble, but those conversations were few and far between. It didn’t help that everyone else under thirty wasn’t able to touch a computer without the risk of it blowing up or summoning monsters.

Then Aunt Lorelei said, “That’s a beautiful ring you’re wearing, Sapphire. Did your dad make it?”

“Oh, that’s not my work, Lorelei. Leo made it for her,” Dad said before Sapphire could come up with a reply.

Leo shrugged when Aunt Lorelei looked at him. “I had help. One of our friends makes jewellery. He gave me a hand with the design.”

“Mike, right? Edgar’s boyfriend?” Mom asked. Leo nodded.

Aunt Lorelei turned back to Sapphire’s ring. “It really is very...Sapphire Amy Banks, is that an engagement ring!?”

Sapphire felt like swearing in every language she could speak, which would have resulted in about an hour of swearing. She couldn’t meet her aunt’s eyes, focusing instead on her plate.

“Maybe,” she said. “Yes.”

“She loves Leo and Leo loves her and they’re getting married in July no matter what you say,” Amber said. “Pass the hot sauce?”

Sapphire looked up for a second and saw Aunt Lorelei, Uncle Nelson, and Shelton staring at her and Leo with facial expressions that ranged from gobsmacked to furious. She resisted her instinctive desire to shadow travel to camp and prepared for the inevitable onslaught.


	6. Sapphire VI

Amber closed the door of Shelton’s room. “That wasn’t so bad,” she said.

Sapphire gave her sister a half-strength child of Hades death glare. “You’re not the one who got asked if you were pregnant. Thrice.”

“And I never will,” Amber said. She threw a pillow at Sapphire’s face and grinned. “Lesbian, remember?”

“You say that like you don’t know that gods complicate things,” Sapphire muttered as she threw the pillow back on the bed and sat down. “Also, sperm donation.”

Amber made a face. “Thanks, I totally needed to think about that.”

“Well, considering that you’re the only one of us who might live long enough to have kids...” Sapphire paused. “No, that’s still true. Magicians have pretty long lifespans.”

Amber looked up from the suitcase she was digging through and scowled at Sapphire. “Quit being so pessimistic.”

“Aren’t I always?”

Sapphire suddenly couldn’t see anything because Amber threw a pair of pajamas at her face. She pulled the pajamas off her head, looked at them for a second, and then threw them back at her sister. “Yours. And could you lay off the projectile weapons?”

Amber rolled her eyes but she walked over to Sapphire and gave her the pajamas that she’d packed.

After they finished getting ready for bed the sisters got into an argument about Sapphire wanting to stay up longer to read that was resolved when they both started yawning so much that they couldn’t get through full sentences. They curled up together on the bed, each of them with their own blanket but sharing a pillow like they were five years old again.

“Goodnight,” Amber said.

“Goodnight.”

* * *

Sapphire dreamed that she was in a tunnel. She could hear the faint sound of rushing water, like a river somewhere in the distance. She turned around and didn’t see any light that could lead her towards an exit, so she picked a direction and started walking. If it was a normal dream then she would end up somewhere else eventually. If it was a demigod dream then she’d probably come across something that would scare her awake or be vitally important for something in the future. Or both. With her luck it would be both.

Far too soon considering the location she ended up being in, Sapphire recognized her surroundings. She wasn’t sure whether to groan, scream, or cry. She was in Melinoe’s cave. Her immortal sister for some reason that probably involved Sapphire ever being born had it in for Sapphire. She’d tried to kill her at least one time last summer and probably multiple other times that were (slightly) harder to trace back to her. Sapphire had personal experience recognizing Melinoe’s cave from one of those other times when Melinoe had waved off Sapphire being dragged to her cave by a swarm of ghosts as an “accident” and then offered her a glass of pomegranate juice.

Obviously trying to get Sapphire trapped in the Underworld much?

Sapphire shrank into the shadows and pressed herself closer to the stone wall as she moved forward. As the goddess of ghosts, there was a very good chance that Melinoe would be able to sense that Sapphire was there. There had to be a reason that Sapphire was here, so she wanted to try to lessen her chances of getting kicked out prematurely.

Light was suddenly provided by a dozen black candles in a gold chandelier dripping with shards of onyx and strings of diamonds that hung from the ceiling. Melinoe had redecorated since Percy, Nico, and Thalia had been there during the sword of Hades fiasco and the chandelier wasn’t the only indication of possibly being the daughter of the god of riches. (Sapphire hadn’t heard anything solid about if Melinoe’s dad was Hades or Zeus.) Gold frames held black and white photos with details like lipstick and bleeding wounds picked out in red. Black velvet curtains studded with rubies hung over the entrance to what Sapphire knew was Melinoe’s bedroom since the curtains had been open last time she was there. Plush rugs in shades of black and red covered the stone floor and a golden baby grand piano played itself in on corner, sending out a puff of steam with every third note of the funeral march. In the centre of it all, Melinoe reclined on a couch, wrapped in a white silk robe and holding a glass of red wine in one hand.

Well, it could have been blood or pomegranate juice, but it was probably red wine.

Melinoe’s half bog mummy, half vampire form was on display and her matching black and white hair was tumbling loose over her shoulders. She took a sip of wine/blood/pomegranate juice and smiled. Sapphire shivered and pulled more shadows around her. She didn’t try to figure out how she could use her powers in a demigod dream, she just wanted to shield herself from that smile.

There was the sound of footsteps and Sapphire and Melinoe both turned to the entrance to the bedroom, Melinoe shifting her form to that of a blonde teenage girl as she did so. A man with a prominent scar that reached from the centre of his chest to the waist of his jeans stepped through the curtains, pulling a t-shirt over his head. Once his face was visible Sapphire was torn between crying and throwing up. Instead she just watched as Jeremy Asher looked at Melinoe and scowled.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

Melinoe smiled. “Do what?”

“Don’t look like her,” Asher said. “Be someone else, anyone else.”

“Fine.”

Melinoe shifted into a slightly older woman with sharp cheekbones, severe eyebrows, and half black half white hair as Asher took a seat on the couch across from her. Time in the Fields of Punishment hadn’t been kind to Asher’s looks. His nose was even more crooked than it had been after Clarisse had broken it, the perfectly-styled hair that he’d been so proud of had been shaved close to his skull, and in addition to the one going down his torso there were scars around both of his eyes. Asher was uncommonly vain for a son of Ares, so the way he looked now probably caused him just as much pain as the punishment Hades had devised for him.

“I enjoyed last night,” Melinoe said, swirling the drink in her glass, “didn’t you?”

Oh gods. Bad thought. Now Sapphire really wanted to throw up.

“You didn’t spring me from Punishment just for sex,” Asher said. “What do you want?”

Melinoe sipped more of her wine/blood/pomegranate juice. “Exactly what you want, lover.”

“And what’s that?”

Melinoe smiled. “To make Sapphire Banks suffer.”

Asher’s eyes lit up. “Can I kill her?”

“Oh darling, that’s so basic.” The eyes of the woman whose form Melinoe was using shrivelled up, turning into Melinoe’s black pits. “Why go for the kill when you can go for the pain? First we’ll turn my sister into a gibbering mess and then you can...do whatever you want with her.”

Melinoe looked directly at Sapphire and smiled.


	7. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

I went downstairs in the morning and saw Sapphire, Amber, and Leo sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast like everything was normal. Sapphire had a pile of strawberries and a cup of Mom’s green tea, while Amber and Leo each had a more typical American breakfast. The only sign that they had been awake half the night with Sapphire’s nightmares were the dark circles under Amber’s eyes. I’d heard every time Sapphire had woken up screaming. A few seconds later Amber would come up to the third floor to get Leo, he’d go sit with Sapphire until she fell asleep and then come back upstairs and doze off until the whole cycle repeated after less than an hour.

I’d concluded that Richie could sleep through the explosion of the Death Star. He didn’t wake up once.

“Morning, Shelton,” Leo said. “There’s bacon in the oven.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Coffee?”

“Should be done in a minute,” Amber said. “This two shouldn’t have coffee, so make sure you keep it away from them.”

Leo grinned. “Us? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He was eating with one hand and the other hand was constantly moving—drumming his fingers on the table, tucking Sapphire’s hair behind her ear, building a model of the Parthenon with napkins and cutlery—so I was pretty sure that Amber was right about not giving him coffee. I didn’t want to know how he acted when caffeine was added to the unholy amount of energy he had at seven in the morning after a sleepless night.

Once I’d gotten a cup of coffee I made some toast and fried an egg to make a breakfast sandwich with a few strips of bacon. I added more bacon to my plate before sitting next to Amber. Hey, wolves are carnivores. Bacon may be, like, ninety percent fat, but it’s still meat.

Leo put an origami roof on his miniature Parthenon and immediately started fiddling with the necklace that was partially hidden by the collar of his shirt. “So, does anyone know what we’re doing today?” he asked.

“I think my mom said something about a museum,” I said.

Amber laughed. “Museums. I have great luck with museums.”

“Don’t remind me,” Sapphire grumbled. “I hate mummies.”

“That part was your fault, not mine,” Amber said, gesturing with her fork.

“If you hadn’t—” Sapphire looked at me and immediately stopped talking.

“If it’s a felony, you haven’t met Tory yet,” I said. “She’s talked us into breaking a lot of laws.”

Off the top of my head there’s been trespassing, multiple break and enters, concealing murders, and going outside during a hurricane. If the last one isn’t illegal it really should be.

“Someday we are going to compare felonies,” Leo said, “when there aren’t any parents around.”

“Good choice,” Mom said as she walked into the kitchen, somehow managing to look a level of sophisticated that Tory’s stepmother would approve of while wearing pajamas, a bathrobe, and turtle slippers. “Is there coffee left?”

All of us except Sapphire pointed at the half empty coffee pot. Mom chuckled and went to pour herself a cup.

Sapphire muttered something in the language that I still didn’t know despite listening to dozens of recordings of people speaking in different languages the night before. She stood up and put her dishes in the sink.

Leo said something in the same language that sounded like a question. Sapphire replied and shook her head.

“She’ll be back in a second,” Leo said to Amber as Sapphire left the room.

Mom yawned. “What language were you speaking? It sounded like...It’s on the tip of my tongue. Something to do with scientific names.”

Leo and Amber looked at each other.

“Greek,” Leo said. “Sort of. We took at class at summer camp and kind of just made up the rest.”

Well, half of that smelled like a lie, I just couldn’t tell if it was the Greek part, the summer camp part, or the making up a language part.

Before I could start asking clarifying questions, Sapphire came back into the kitchen. Leo took one look at her and was at her side so quickly that even my wolf senses had trouble keeping track of him. Considering that she was so pale that dead Jon Snow looked healthier than her, I was pretty sure that Leo had the right idea. Printing paper isn’t the normal colour palette for human skin.

“What’s wrong?” Amber asked.

“There’s a dead girl in the front yard,” Sapphire said. “Someone should probably call the police.”

Mom dropped her mug. As if the sound of shattering ceramic was some sort of psychic trigger, Sapphire sagged back into Leo’s arms in a dead faint. Okay, “dead” was maybe not the best word to use under the circumstances, but she looked dead. I’d seen enough recently dead people to know. I mean, I’d seen one recently dead person but that’s more than enough for me, thanks.

Though, if Sapphire wasn’t mistaken, there was another dead person right on my front lawn. Since re: Morris Island is in the east end of nowhere, a random dead body had to mean foul play and foul play meant murder, and murder on Morris Island meant a mystery that all of the Virals had a stake in.

Tory was going to be thrilled. We hadn’t needed to commit any felonies for months.

I wondered if there was any way to avoid telling her about this.


	8. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

Amber ran upstairs saying that she’d better make sure Richie didn’t see the body while Leo picked up Sapphire and propped her up in a chair.

“She should wake up soon,” he said. “Maybe one of you should go check that there actually is a body. Sapphire doesn’t usually hallucinate but with what’s been going on...There’s a first time for everything.”

Mom made a small sound, like a mouse being stepped on.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I muttered. “I’ll go check. Please ignore any high-pitched screaming.”

I crept down the hall in a very manly manner and peaked through the window next to the front door. I saw the big pinkish blobs on the lawn first. The dead girl was a few feet away from them, clearly visible from the window and with two seagulls with their beaks in her chest cavity. One of the seagulls looked right at me and squawked.

I ran back to the kitchen as quickly as possible.

“Yeah, there’s actually a body,” I said. “Should I wake up Dad?”

Mom squeaked again before clearing her throat. “I’ll go wake him, Shelton. You can call the police.” She practically ran to the living room.

I called the police.

The police and the Virals do not have anything that could be called a good relationship. Considering how many times we’ve pulled one over on them or solved a crime before them or committed a felony it’s no surprise. Fortunately, I had a secret weapon called Detective Jordan Fortune. Well, his phone number anyway. He was a new to the Charleston Police Department, which meant that he hadn’t had firsthand experience with the entire pack. He also ran a D&D group every other Saturday, which is why I had his phone number.

The phone rang twice before Detective Fortune picked up. “Hello?”

“There’s a dead girl in my front yard getting eaten by seagulls,” I said.

Detective Fortune was quiet for a long time.

“Good morning?” I said.

Detective Fortune sighed. “Shelton, why are you calling me?”

“The rest of the police department doesn’t like me,” I said. “I thought you’d actually believe me.”

“You’re not wrong,” Detective Fortune said. “We’ll be right there.”

“Thanks.”

Sapphire had woken up while I was on the phone. She was rocking back and forth in her chair muttering to herself while Leo tried to comfort her.

“ _mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_ ,” she said, over and over again.

“That’s not true and you know it,” Leo said. “Good news, Shelton?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got a friend in the police force. He’s going to get people to come out here.”

Leo nodded and went back to trying to get Sapphire to stop saying that everything was her fault.

I’m a nerd. I’ve learned a little Latin.

By the time the police arrived everyone was awake, Sapphire had mostly calmed down, and Amber had given up on chasing Richie away from the windows and just tied him to a kitchen chair with rope that she got from somewhere. Dad had gotten over his shock at being woken up to be told that there was a body on the lawn and was the first to greet Detective Fortune and his partner.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Dad said as he shook Detective Fortune’s hand.

“Well, I didn’t want all the evidence to end up inside a seagull,” Detective Fortune said, looking at the boxes that held the seagulls that one of the women examining the body had somehow managed to capture. “Olivia would kill me.”

“Jordan, come look at this,” the seagull-capturing woman called.

The other detective told us to stay put until they could talk to us, but when Hi and Tory came running towards our house I had to go meet them. Leo and Sapphire were trailing after Detective Fortune, so I wasn’t the only one not listening to instructions.

“I think I speak for all of us when I say ew,” Hi said.

“What happened?” Tory asked, eyeing the forensics team.

“Woke up in the morning and she was just there,” I said. “My cousin Sapphire saw her first. They’re not going to let you help, Tory.”

Tory tore her eyes away from the men and women swarming around the body. “Are those your cousins there, talking to Jordan?”

“That’s Sapphire and Leo, her fiancé,” I said.

“Wait, they’re engaged?” Hi asked. “I thought Sapphire was our age.”

“Never mind that,” Tory said. “Are they speaking Latin?”

Hi and I did the smart thing and shut up so we could all try to listen to Sapphire and Leo’s conversation with Detective Fortune.

“Yeah, that’s Latin,” Hi said after a minute or so.

Tory and Hi are also nerds.

“ _sanguis?_ ” Tory repeated. “Blood...The body was moved.”

“How on earth did you get that out of one word?” Hi asked.

Tory rolled her eyes. “I didn’t. There’s not enough blood around the body, unless it’s all underneath it. The ground is bone dry. She had to have been killed somewhere else.”

“Thank you, CSI Tory,” Hi said. “We’re not investigating this. Shelton, tell Tory we’re not investigating this.”

Tory and Hi both looked at me. Tory was using the big puppy eyes that she had learned from Coop.

“We’re not investigating this,” I said. “We’re on vacation.”

“But someone put a dead girl on your lawn,” Tory said. “They came all the way out to Morris Island with a dead body and put it in front of your house. Don’t you want to know why?”

“Well, yeah, but the police can handle it, Tory,” I said. “And I don’t want to go chasing down another murderer.”

Hi raised his hand. “I second that. This body was not made for running from gun-wielding psychos.”

“Also, we don’t have our flares to save our butts,” I said.

Before Tory could start making another argument that would inevitably lead to us calling Ben and heading out to investigate the girl’s murder, a shout from Sapphire made everyone outside turn to look at her. She was speaking rapidly in Latin to Detective Fortune, her voice getting louder with every word until she burst into tears. Detective Fortune looked like he’d just been slapped in the face with a wet fish.

“That can’t be good,” Hi said.

Tory got the look on her face that the rest of us Virals know too well. “We’d better go see what’s going on.”

She marched up the driveway, expecting Hi and me to follow, which we did, but not without complaining. I could see my list of felonies growing longer in the very near future.


	9. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

Tory was looking at the body. Because of course she was looking at the body. Heck, she was probably smelling the body since she had the best sense of smell out of all of us bar Coop. It was no secret that she wanted to be her great-aunt Temperance Brennan—yes, _that_ Temperance Brennan—and bodies were not something that made her squeamish. Hi and I on the other hand were trying really hard to not look at the dead girl. Seeing her once was more than enough for me.

 _‘Her lungs were cut out while she was still alive,’_ Tory said telepathically.

 _‘I so did not need to know that,’_ Hi replied.

“What just happened?” I asked Leo when we’d gotten past the CSI people.

Leo looked down at Sapphire, who was sobbing into his shirt, and then over at Detective Fortune, who still looked like he’d just be slapped in the face with a wet fish. “Sapphire is terrified and I think Detective Tuna is freaking out.”

Hi sputtered. “Detective Tuna?”

I hesitated for a second before waving my hand in front of Detective Fortune’s face. He didn’t respond.

“What _exactly_ just happened?” Tory asked.

Leo gave Tory a wary look. “Who are you?”

I quickly introduced Tory as my other friend and also made sure to mention Ben since he was sure to show up sooner or later. Leo looked at Tory again, only slightly less wary. He was ready to fight again.

“Your hair is really red,” Leo said to Tory. He forced a joking tone. “You’re not a Weasley, right?”

“Well, she is a Gryffindor,” Hi said.

“What happened?” Tory asked again.

Sapphire hiccupped and turned her head so she wasn’t talking into Leo’s chest. “Misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?” I looked at Detective Fortune, who was still frozen. “That looks more like petrification.”

Leo reached out and poked Detective Fortune’s arm. Detective Fortune finally showed some awareness of the world around him and blinked. He even looked slightly less ill.

“Father help us,” Detective Fortune muttered, which was surprising since I didn’t know he was religious. “Anything else I should know?”

Sapphire wiped tears off her face and moved to stand beside Leo. “Lots, but not now.”

Detective Fortune looked sideways at me, Tory, and Hi. “Not now,” he agreed. “Head back inside. Olivia and I will talk to you later.”

“Aye aye captain,” Leo said.

 _‘Sheldon, go with them,’_ Tory ordered. _‘Find out what they’re talking about.’_

Yeah, that would be easy. It wasn’t like it sounded like they were speaking in code when they weren’t speaking in dead languages or anything.

Sarcasm is sarcastic.

I tried not to be too obvious as I hurried after Sapphire and Leo. Behind me, I heard Tory beginning her usual questioning of law enforcement on the scene of whatever crime had the audacity to take place in her vicinity. Luckily I’d mentioned Tory’s interest in solving crimes a few times at D&D, so Detective Fortune was prepared. Probably.

In the kitchen, Aunt Mariko and Uncle Harrold were picking at the remains of the breakfast Leo had made. Richie was sitting between them at the kitchen table, still tied to a chair but with the added bonus of a t-shirt tied over his eyes. Amber was glaring at him like he would disappear if she took her eyes off him for a second.

“I’m fourteen!” Richie complained.

“Don’t care,” Amber said. “Still not letting you see a dead body.”

Sapphire tilted her head. “I can’t tell if Amber is the normal one or not.”

“The police are going to talk to us soon,” Leo said to the room at large. “Is there any coffee left?”

Sapphire, Amber, Richie, Aunt Mariko, and Uncle Harrold all immediately shouted various versions of “You can’t have coffee!”

Leo sighed. “I really need coffee.”

Sapphire kissed his cheek. “We really need nothing to explode.”

“Point taken,” Leo said. Then he said something in their Greek conlang that sounded like a question, or maybe half a question considering how it trailed off.

“Shouldn’t I?” Sapphire asked.

Leo shrugged. “I was thinking I’d be the scapegoat.”

Sapphire grimaced. “Good idea.”

Leo left the room and headed upstairs. Sapphire looked at Aunt Mariko and Uncle Harrold, then at Amber.

“Don’t worry,” she said.

“That makes me think that we should worry,” Uncle Harrold said.

“Don’t worry,” Sapphire repeated. “Detective Fortune is handling things.”

“He’s a good guy,” I said. “He’ll make sure we’re safe.”

“Uh huh,” Uncle Harrold said. He went back to his cold bacon.

Sapphire started pacing around the kitchen while I tried to eavesdrop on Leo. Not to brag, but I’ve got the best hearing out of everyone in our pack. It took less than a second for me to tune in on the conversation Leo was having on the floor above us. And it was a conversation, not just Leo talking to himself. I could clearly hear another voice, probably a boy talking through a phone or something.

The boy was talking rapidly in yet another language that I didn’t know.

“Are you done?” Leo asked during a pause. “Or are you actually saying something important? Because, newsflash, I don’t speak Italian.”

“Gods damn—” the boy said. “You guys get here now!”

“Not happening,” Leo said. “Sapphire’s already decided, and you know she won’t leave her family.”

“She’s going to get herself killed,” the boy said. “You make her leave or I’m coming to get you.”

Woah, killed? That wasn’t good.

Leo scoffed. “Do you really think I can make her do something she doesn’t want to do? Dude, _you’d_ kill me if I did. Amber and I can watch her back, and there are two from the Legion with the police. Besides, you’ll know if she’s in danger and be here in five seconds or less.”

None of that was confusing at all, no sir. I was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone from the French Foreign Legion in the police force and unless this other guy lived on Morris Island there was no way he was getting here in less than an hour.

The boy grumbled. “I am not happy about this.”

“You made that very clear,” Leo said.

“It didn’t go well last time.”

“I know. I was there.”

The boy sighed. “We’re not going to be able to stop her, are we?”

“Not a chance,” Leo said. “Sapphire’s determined to play bait.”


	10. Sapphire X

Jordan’s partner was determined to talk to all of them at the same time. Sapphire stopped pacing along the walls to pay more attention to their argument and was relieved when Jordan convinced the other man that they would get more truthful information if they talked to the kids separately from their parents. She didn’t feel like explaining the whole demigod thing to her aunt and uncle, and none of the parents would be happy with her playing bait for a murderer. It would be less of a problem if Shelton found out, but she still didn’t feel like explaining.

Jordan stood by the kitchen counter. The son of Mercury had a look of complete seriousness on his face that Sapphire had never seen on any of his siblings, Roman or Greek. She probably would have if she’d been around for either of the wars, but since she hadn’t she was left feeling even more grim than she had been. A child of Mercury looking that serious just wasn’t natural.

Jordan looked at Richie. “Why is he tied to a chair?”

“Because everyone thinks I’m a baby,” Richie complained.

Amber crossed her arms. “We don’t want him to see the body.”

Jordan nodded. “That’s fair. Sapphire, you saw the body first, right?”

Sapphire nodded. She had gotten a good look at the dead girl to confirm what she already knew: she looked like Ursula Afolayan, daughter of Boreas, and had been killed just like her too.

“Do you know the girl?” Jordan looked at each of them. “Do any of you know her?”

Sapphire, Leo, and Amber shook their heads.

“Probably not,” Richie said.

Sapphire looked at Shelton, who was sitting at the table next to Richie. If anyone knew who the girl was, it was the person who lived and went to school in the area.

Shelton grimaced. “I didn’t get a good look. I didn’t _want_ to.”

Sapphire had to say something, didn’t she? This was a murder investigation. She had to tell Jordan why they taken a flying leap to the conclusion that Asher was responsible.

“She looks like a girl we used to know,” Sapphire said. Everyone else turned to face her direction and she shrank back into the corner she was standing in. “Not know, exactly. I never met her, but Leo went to summer camp with her. Her name was Ursula. She was killed four years ago.”

Leo tapped his fingers on the table. “We didn’t interact much. Different cabins, different schedules. But she came to Camp a few months after I did. We knew the same people.”

“What happened to her?” Jordan asked.

“Same thing that happened to the girl outside.” Leo sighed. “Except they didn’t find Ursula’s lungs.”

There was a knock on the door frame and Olivia came into the room. She was the other child of Mercury in the CPD, though she worked in forensics rather than as a homicide detective. She handed a plastic evidence bag to her brother. “She was wearing this.”

Jordan frowned at the bag. Sapphire knew why the second he held it up to show them its contents. Inside the bag was a Camp Half-Blood necklace, beads coated in patches of blood but still identifiable. Sapphire stepped closer. The Giant War’s black omega and green olive branch on a purple and orange background was the first bead and the second was the one from the summer after that, a pink bead with four silver stars. It was the same as Ursula’s necklace would have been when she died.

Amber swore in Ancient Egyptian. At least, Sapphire hoped it was swearing. A tornado popping up in the middle of the kitchen was one of the last things they needed right now. Some of the others were Nico shadow travelling to the house, monsters of any kind attacking, and Amber accidentally turning into a bird (which had happened a ridiculous amount of times since last summer).

“You recognize this?” Jordan asked, even though he knew that at least Leo and Sapphire did.

“Yeah.” Amber looked over at Leo. “You’ve got the same beads, right?”

Leo nodded and pulled his camp necklace out from under the collar of his shirt when Olivia asked to see it.

Olivia frowned and pointed to the matching two beads. “How old are these?”

“Five and six years,” Leo said. “Why?”

“They’re not the same.” Olivia muttered to herself, grabbed the evidence bag out of Jordan’s hand, and hurried out of the house.

Jordan looked the direction his sister had disappeared in. “Thanks for telling me what you’re doing, Olivia. I’m sure there won’t be any problems because I don’t know what’s going on. Did they catch the guy who killed Ursula?”

Leo and Amber looked over at Sapphire. Perhaps a bit too obviously and for a bit too long, because Shelton almost immediately looked confused.

“Kind of,” Leo said. “He got arrested and put in prison...but he escaped. Earlier this week.”

Sapphire then got to learn some very interesting Latin curses that she hadn’t heard from any of the Romans she’d met before. Maybe it was a son of Mercury skill. She made a mental note to use a few of them next time Cora was spreading rumours about her and her friends.

Jordon came to the end of his string of swearing and turned to a new page in his notebook. “ _You could have said that before_ ,” he said in Latin before switching back to English. “Name and description. Now.”

Sapphire spoke before Leo could. “Jeremy Asher, twenty years old.” She switched to Latin to add “ _Son of the war god. Greek._ ” before continuing. “Black hair, pale skin, crooked nose, hazel eyes. Scars around both eyes and one going down from his chest like...like half an autopsy. He’s tall. Maybe six feet. Strong. Fast. Sadistic. He likes knives.”

By the time she stopped talking Sapphire had a death grip on her skull ring and was actively trying not to cause the shadows in the room to flare up. She was still absolutely terrified but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be angry. Asher had too many lives to pay for taking for her to hide in her cabin and jump at every sound, even though doing so was a very tempting option.

“Knives?” Jordan asked.

“I’ve seen him in action.” As much as she could see while he was squeezing her neck and cutting into her face. The tears made it kind of difficult.

Jordan raked his fingers through his hair. “Okay, is there anything else? Where did he escape from? Do you know?”

“Somewhere in Los Angeles,” Leo said. He cleared his throat. “Underground.”

Jordan went very pale. He got the message.

“You definitely think the girl outside is connected to this guy, don’t you?” Shelton asked.

Jordan sighed. “Yeah, I think so. But I didn’t tell you that. Ongoing investigation, you know?”

Sapphire swallowed. Her throat was dry and she thought about getting a glass of water. No, it was better to get this over with. “You’ll need to know about...There were other girls.”

Silence. Jordan and Shelton stared at Sapphire, not seeming to comprehend what she had just said. Or maybe not wanting to comprehend.

Leo touched Sapphire’s hand. She gripped his fingers like a lifeline and took a deep breath. “Their names were Emma and Rose...”

Outside, the forensics team continued their work. Sunlight cut daggers through the window. Sapphire was sure she was the only one who heard the keening of the dead and a god of the sun. 


	11. Sapphire XI

Even though his front lawn was an active crime scene, Uncle Nelson still wanted to take the planned trip to Loggerhead Island. He thought that it would be a good distraction. He wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t right either.

Sapphire hadn’t let go of Leo’s hand since they talked to Jordan. When they were on the boat to Loggerhead Island she was pretty sure she had come close to breaking his fingers. Poseidon didn’t hate her. That didn’t mean that she was comfortable travelling by sea.

Loggerhead Island reminded her of the woods at Camp Half-Blood. The trees were dense and it was full of strange howls and growls, though on Loggerhead the noises were from monkeys, a wolf, a German Shepherd and a wolf- German Shepherd hybrid rather than monsters. It wasn’t far from the pier to the research centre buildings. Uncle Nelson and Aunt Lorelei gave them the grand tour, at least as much as the grumpy security guard would allow. Sapphire felt like she did the first time she’d seen Camp Half-Blood. She fell in love with the gathering of bricks, steel and concrete almost immediately.

“I want to work here,” Sapphire said after a marine biologist explained some of the research she was doing on aquatic plants. “Can you put in a good word for me, Aunt Lorelei? I don’t eat much and I don’t take up a lot of space.”

Aunt Lorelei smiled for the first time that day. “Get your degree first, then I’ll talk to Dr. Howard.”

Another researcher let them watch her run a sample through a mass spectrometer. Sapphire, Amber and Leo stayed pretty far back so that the machine and the computers wouldn’t short out or summon a monster, but Sapphire watched the entire process closely.

“That’s so cool.” Sapphire turned to Leo. “What do you think would happen if we ran water from, er, Nico’s dad’s place?”

Leo eyed the mass spectrometer. “The machine would probably explode. That is what usually happens.” He continued to look at the mass spectrometer like he would a particularly difficult project.

It was almost enough fun to make Sapphire forget about the dead girl. Almost.

“Mom? Dad? Hi, Ben and Tory are here,” Shelton said when they were back outside. He held up his cell phone. “Can I tell them to meet us?”

Aunt Lorelei and Uncle Nelson conferred with Mom and Dad.

“Alright,” Uncle Nelson said. “They can join us for lunch. Tell Tory to keep Cooper on a leash.”

Shelton shot his dad a thumbs-up and began typing away on his phone. Sapphire, Amber and Leo inched away from him. They did not need monsters getting a lock on them.

They had lunch in the cafeteria. Mom and Uncle Nelson had made sandwiches and Hi contributed a bag of chips. Shelton’s last friend Ben was quiet through most of the meal. He was the strong, silent type, something which didn’t apply to most demigods. He reminded Sapphire of Frank, funnily enough, though Tory was very obviously the leader of the pack.

“So, are you still, like, the wolf whisperer?” Hi asked Sapphire.

Sapphire frowned. “That would be Will, and I don’t think you’ve met him.”

“No, I mean, last time you were here, with Whisper, I ended up at the top of a tree.” Hi raised his eyebrows. “Remember?”

“No, I don’t.” Sapphire shook her head and looked at Amber. “We’ve been here before?”

Amber grimaced. “Uh, yeah, back when...You know.”

“Oh.” Back when Jeremy (NOT Asher) had just died and everything was a mess. Sapphire turned back to Hi. “I was emotionally preoccupied.”

Hi nodded. “Okay. Just, try not to do it again? I can only take so many life-or-death situations and Tory is filling up that quota really fast.”

Sapphire quickly looked down at the table. “Uh huh.” Considering that they were in a life-or-death situation right now she really didn’t find that joke funny.

“Oh,” Hi said after a few seconds. “Sorry.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Tory said. “Why don’t we show you guys around the island? I mean it’s been so long since you’ve been here and Leo never has. It’ll be fun.”

“I’m in.” Leo bumped shoulders with Sapphire. “Could be fun.”

Sapphire managed a small smile in response to Leo’s grin. “Yeah, okay. Count me in. Ams?”

Amber shrugged. “Why not? Let’s just try to stay away from wolves, okay?”

Considering that they didn’t need a repeat of Montana that sounded like a good plan.

Richie didn’t join them because, in his words, he preferred easy access to civilization. The adults told them to be back in an hour.

Tory took the lead, following paths that Sapphire could barely see. It was a lot like being in the woods at camp, only none of them were visibly carrying weapons.

“Hey.” Hi pointed at a mark on one of the trees. “This is where we were dodging gunmen, remember?”

“You were what?” Amber asked.

Ben smirked. “Feeling nostalgic, Hiram?”

Hi quickly shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no. Just noticed the bullet wound on the tree. No nostalgia at all.”

“You guys were chased by people shooting at you?” Amber looked back at Sapphire and Leo. “Our lives cannot compare.”

Leo chuckled, then stopped. “Did anyone get hurt?”

“Not really,” Shelton said. He tugged at his earlobe. “We made out by the skin of our teeth.”

That didn’t sound at all familiar. Nope, not at all.

They kept going. Then, not at all suddenly, a chill crept into Sapphire’s body, wriggling through her gut and into her bones. She squeezed Leo’s hand and stifled a gasp.

“What’s wrong?” Leo whispered.

“Death,” Sapphire breathed. “A grave. It was violent.”

A girl had died. She’d been buried not right here, but close. Sapphire couldn’t tell if this was where she had died. It had been so violent and the girl was...

“Angry.” Sapphire’s eyes widened. “She’s so angry.”

At the front of the line, too far away to have heard what they were saying, Ben turned around. His eyes blazed. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

Before anyone else could say anything, Coop started barking frantically. White mist came creeping through the trees and the forest was filled with the echoes of a girl’s screams.


	12. Sapphire XII

Sapphire, Amber and Leo drew their weapons.

“Everyone stay close,” Amber ordered. “Saph, you feel anything?”

“Just a really angry ghost.” Sapphire turned around with her swords in a defensive position. “Her grave isn’t far. She’s coming this way.”

“Time to make a circle?” Amber didn’t wait for a reply before taking out her Sons of Horus figurines.

“What are you talking about?” Tory demanded. “Where did you get swords?”

She was clear-sighted then. That made things more difficult, especially considering that the boys were looking at her like she’d grown a second head.

“That’s a knife and a baseball bat, Tory,” Hi said. “Are you feeling okay?”

Leo raised the actual knife he was holding. “Get in the circle. We’ll explain later, assuming we all survive this.” He looked at Sapphire. “How are we going to survive this?”

Confession time: Sapphire had no idea how to fight a ghost. That was Nico’s job since he had more experience and didn’t have to go to school. She’d summoned ghosts before, raised the dead a little, and received messages via shade, but she’d never had to battle a ghost. The only solution coming to mind was what the magicians at Brooklyn House had done to defeat Setne and that had taken a lot more time and magic than they currently had available.

“Follow my lead,” Sapphire said. “And pray.”

Leo grinned. “So, we’re winging it? Business as usual then.”

That was all there was time for. The ghost girl came flying through the trees and bounced off the protective circle that Amber had made with the four Sons of Horus figurines and a line in the dirt connecting them. Amber had managed to gather Shelton, Tory, Hi, Ben and Coop in the circle with her. Sapphire saw her strain against the ghost girl’s attack.

“What was that?” Shelton tugged on his earlobe and looked around.

“Gods, she’s strong,” Amber said. “Now would be a good time to do something, Saph.”

Sapphire took a step in the direction that the ghost girl had bounced. Before she could go any further the ghost girl herself stepped out of the trees. She must have been pretty when she was alive. Now, her big eyes were hollow pits with blood red tears running down from their corners. Her hair hung limp, tangled with leaves, twigs and pale feathers. Her clothes were covered in blood.

“Murderers,” the ghost girl hissed. English, not Shade. She really was strong.

Or someone had put in a lot of effort to summon her.

Sapphire swallowed. “We didn’t kill you.”

The ghost girl drew her lips back from her teeth. “Killers. Destroyers.”

“We didn’t kill you,” Leo repeated. “And no one here’s destroyed anything lately. You’re talking to the wrong people.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. The ghost girl let out an inhuman shriek and flew towards Leo. Her hands morphed into raptor-like claws.

Sapphire met the ghost halfway. She stopped the girl’s talons with one of her Stygian Iron blades, which she hadn’t actually expected to work, but the rest of the ghost kept going, passing through her chest and throwing her back hard into a tree. Sapphire got the wind knocked out of her but managed to keep hold of her weapons. Percy would be proud, he was always getting on her case about losing her weapons, though that could be because he was the best swordsman in like forever and was always able to disarm her whenever they sparred.

“Hey!” Leo yelled. “Hands off my girlfriend!”

Sapphire caught her breath while Leo distracted the ghost. It felt like it took way too long and she was seeing little stars the whole time. Maybe she’d hit her head on the tree too.

“You okay, Saph?” Amber asked, sounding worried.

Sapphire pushed herself to her feet. “Peachy.”

On the other side of the circle, Leo was playing keep away with the ghost girl. There was a cut on his cheek that made it clear that the ghost’s talons weren’t just for show. That was worrying. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to touch living flesh. Then again, ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to throw people into trees or speak any language but Shade (unless they were _lares_ or had been summoned). Ghost girl was breaking all the rules. If Sapphire couldn’t sense that she was _just_ a ghost she’d have thought that they’d run into a _mania_ or some similar monster.

“Hey, ghostie girl! You want to tell us what you’re doing here?” Sapphire prayed that the ghost would answer. That information would be a big help for figuring out how to get rid of the ghost. At least, she thought it would be. The possible concussion wasn’t helping her thought process.

The ghost stopped attacking Leo. “You killed me!” she shrieked.

“No, we didn’t,” Sapphire said. “You’ve been dead a long time, longer than we’ve been alive.”

The ghost looked confused. Her talons shrunk back down into slim fingers. “He said the people who killed me would be here.”

Suspicion gnawed at Sapphire’s mind. “Who told you that?”

“A boy.” The ghost tilted her head. “He was very nice. He wanted to help me.”

Leo, who had fallen back to catch his breath when Sapphire and the ghost started talking, looked at Sapphire with wide eyes. She suspected that he was coming to the same conclusion she was.

“Did this boy have a crooked nose and scars around his eyes?” Sapphire asked.

The ghost girl nodded.

Sapphire sighed. “I’m sorry. He didn’t want to help you, he wants to kill me and he thought you would do it.”

The ghost girl stood absolutely still. Then she began to vibrate. Her edges blurred and her fingers became claws again. Sapphire felt the spike in her anger and raised her swords.

“Katherine!” Tory yelled before either of them could attack. She had pushed past the boys and stood next to Amber at the edge of the circle.

The ghost stopped vibrating and looked at Tory. “What?”

“The man responsible for your death was arrested last year,” Tory said. “He’s going to be in jail for the rest of his life.”

“Oh,” the ghost girl, Katherine, said in a small voice. She floated to the ground like a feather, landing on her side before pushing herself up with clawless hands. “He’s gone?”

“Long gone,” Tory said.

“Oh.” Katherine’s shoulders shook. Blood red tears splattered on the ground.

Sapphire carefully stepped closer to the ghost girl. She reached out with her Underworld senses and felt the warmth of a human soul inside the cold spot that marked Kathrine’s location. “Katherine, you don’t belong here.”

Katherine looked up, her face streaked with bloody tears. Her eyes seemed less hollow now. “Where can I go?”

“My father has a place for you.” Sapphire sheathed her _katana_ and held out her hand to the ghost. “Will you let me help you get there?”

Katherine sniffed and nodded. She put her hand in Sapphire’s, not dissolving in the slightest. Whatever Asher had done to her had made her a very strange ghost.

Sapphire tightened her grip on the Stygian Iron _wakizashi_ in her left hand. That little piece of the Underworld and the power inside of her was more than enough to send Katherine straight to Judgment. After what she’d been through the girl didn’t deserve to have to deal with Charon.

“Your time has long since passed,” Sapphire said softly. “Be released and rest.”

A look of calm passed over Katherine’s face. For a moment she was just a girl, no blood, no tears, no eyes of darkness. Then with a sigh she dissolved into mist and disappeared.


	13. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

I had no idea what had just happened. I just knew that Tory was hallucinating.

 _‘I am not hallucinating,’_ Tory insisted. _‘Kathrine was here. I know what I saw.’_

Yeah, she was hallucinating, because there was no way a girl who had been dead for more than forty years could show up on Loggerhead as anything but a skeleton. And we’d already found the skeleton.

Amber ran over to Sapphire and Leo, who were sitting on the ground not far from the circle she’d drawn in the dirt and dragged us into. “How bad is she hurt?”

“She isn’t unconscious,” Sapphire grumbled. Then she grimaced and held a hand to the back of her head. “Ow.”

Leo quickly dug through the pockets of his tool belt. I could hear a lot of things rattling inside it—way more than should have been able to fit in there—before he pulled out a metal flask that almost looked too big for the pocket he’d taken it out of. When Leo opened the flask I caught a whiff of something sweet and (somehow) cold that reminded me of the ice cream Mom and I used to make when I was little. It didn’t smell like alcohol, which was both good and weird.

Sapphire took a sip of whatever the sweet stuff was and handed the flask back to Leo. “You’ve got something on your face.”

Yeah, blood. Because Leo had gotten a cut on his cheek during whatever had happened that definitely didn’t involve a ghost because ghosts aren’t real.

Leo drank from the flask before putting it away. “Good as new.”

“Great,” Amber said. “I’m going to do a fly over to see if we’re in for any more surprises.”

“Don’t—” Sapphire said. “Ugh, I hate it when she does that.”

I blinked. Amber was gone. She must have run out of sight.

 _‘Uh, Shelton? Did you know your cousin could turn into a bird?’_ Tory asked.

I blinked, with surprise this time. _‘What?’_

 _‘I see your ‘What?’ and raise you a ‘Huh?’’_ Hi said telepathically. _‘Amber just...left.’_

“Would someone explain what’s going on?” Ben asked.

Sapphire and Leo looked at each other. Sapphire said something in their made-up Greek language. Leo responded the same way.

Ben scowled. “Maybe in English so we can actually understand you.”

Leo grinned. “Would you believe a gas leak?”

“We’re on an uninhabited island,” Ben deadpanned.

Leo shrugged. “It was worth a try. Sapphire? It’s your cousin.”

Sapphire grumbled something that I didn’t catch. It probably wasn’t in English anyway. She pushed herself to her feet and narrowed her eyes at us. She was holding the knife and baseball bat that she’d gotten from somewhere and looked a lot like she was contemplating using them. Hi and I each took a step back. Ben took a step forward so that he could jump between Sapphire and Tory if he had to. Not that he would have to. Sapphire wouldn’t have tried to kill us. Nope, that’s not something that could ever happen.

Us Virals have nearly been killed by our classmates before. Multiple times. Having my cousin try to slice us to pieces would not have been a surprise. 

“How do you feel about magic?” Sapphire asked.

“Magic like rabbits out of hats?” Ben asked. 

Sapphire shook her head. “Magic like people who can turn into birds of prey and create fire with their minds. Not the same people though. If Leo turned into a bird that would be weird.”

“If you turned into a bird you’d get hit by lightning,” Leo said.

Sapphire stuck her tongue out at him and Leo smirked.

Hi raised his hand. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

It sounded to me like Sapphire and Leo were trying to tell us that magic was real. And maybe that they could control fire. I wasn’t too clear on that point.

Sapphire sighed. “Okay, let’s go with the tried and true speech then. What do you know about Greek and Roman mythology?”

“Lightning bolts, _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_ ,” Hi said. His eyes widened. “No way.”

“You read the books too?” Sapphire asked. “Which one are you on?”

“ _The Son of Neptune_ ,” Hi said dimly. “I’m rereading before the new series starts. What did you say your names were?”

Tory stared at Hi for a second. She was probably giving him a mental nudge and asking what the hell he was thinking. That’s what I was doing anyway. Hi didn’t respond.

Sapphire smiled. “Sapphire Banks and Leo Valdez.”

Hi squeaked, stumbled half a step backwards, and sat down hard on the ground. He put his hands to the sides of his head like he was trying to stop his skull from exploding. “I didn’t hear that right. Right? Shelton? Ben? Tory?”

Ben crossed his arms and glared. He didn’t seem to know who to glare at, so he shot one at all of us aside from Tory. “What are you talking about?”

Sapphire’s smile widened. “The gods are real. Like the Greek gods. And the Roman gods. And the Egyptian gods. And Apollo mentioned something about a goddess called Sulis once and clammed up really fast so probably Celtic gods too.”

Leo’s eyebrows rose. After a second, he shook his head. “You know, actually, I’m not surprised.”

“Nope,” Hi said. “Nope, nope, nope. I’m imagining things. _I’m_ hallucinating. This isn’t real.”

“This is real,” Sapphire said. “Tory saw the ghost girl. Right, Tory?”

Tory nodded.

“If there was a ghost here, then why didn’t the rest of us see it?” Ben demanded.

Leo shrugged. “You’re not clear-sighted, I guess. Sapphire’s the ghost expert here.”

I looked at Sapphire. Weren’t ghost experts supposed to have electromagnetic gadgets and stuff? Or at least heavy eyeliner?

“What am I holding?” Sapphire asked.

“A bat,” I said. “And a knife.” That was obvious. 

“Swords,” Tory said.

Sapphire nodded. “Clear-sighted.”

Hi was still repeatedly denying that any of this was happening. Ben slapped him on the back of his head. It didn’t help.

Then Amber reappeared, running (I think?) out of the trees, breathing hard. “We’re in trouble. You guys need to see this.”

Actually, we didn’t _need_ to see it. It was another body. 


	14. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

This time the dead girl was in front of the gates at LIRI. She didn’t look dead. Her chest hadn’t been torn open and there weren’t organs scattered on the dirt road. I wouldn’t have known she was dead if we hadn’t confirmed the lack of heartbeat through pack channels.

“Emma,” Sapphire said.

The sun disappeared behind a cloud. I could still see the dead girl.

“You know her?” Ben asked.

“Not her,” Leo said, gesturing towards the dead girl. “But she looks like the second girl Jeremy Asher got killed.”

Amber had a pained look on her face. “That’s what I was afraid of. Blonde...Daughter of Apollo, right?”

Leo and Sapphire nodded.

“Second girl?” Ben asked. “Who’s Jeremy Asher? Do you know what’s going on?”

While Leo and Amber filled Ben, Hi and Tory in on the previous murders that Sapphire had told Jordan about, I stepped a few feet away to where I could get cell reception and called Jordan. When I told him there was another dead girl, he was totally silent for a second before he started what I assume was swearing in Latin.

“Don’t touch anything,” Jordan said. “Don’t go anywhere. We’re on our way.”

“...want us to leave,” Leo was saying when I rejoined the group.

Sapphire crossed her arms. “I’m beginning to see why that might be a good idea. How the hell did he get out here? Isn’t there only one boat?” She looked at me, Hi, Tory and Ben.

“Stealing a boat wouldn’t be that hard,” Tory pointed out. “But someone would have heard it.” She didn’t mention that our pack would definitely have heard a boat coming towards Loggerhead. We hadn’t heard anything.

“Your sister could have helped him,” Amber said. “She helped him raise a ghost.”

Ben held up his hands. “Hold up. _Her_ sister?”

“The goddess of ghosts,” Amber said. “Don’t say her name, we don’t want to attract her attention.”

Hi frowned. “You mean Mel—”

“Don’t!” Amber, Leo, and Sapphire said. Ben hit the back of Hi’s head again.

“The police are on the way,” I said when the glaring died down. “Jordan said to just sit tight.”

Tory looked towards the body. “I could just—”

“No,” I said. “Bad idea. We barely survived the last time you examined a dead body, we have no chance against a murder ghost whisperer son of a god.”

Leo whistled in a way that I was pretty sure meant that he was impressed. “Assuming we’re all alive and not in jail when this is all over, I want to hear some of your stories. I’m guessing you guys don’t have a handy book masquerading as kids’ fiction?”

Tory smiled. “Fresh out, I’m afraid.”

Leo chuckled. How they managed to smile while standing less than fifty feet from a dead girl I didn’t know. Maybe it was a coping mechanism.

While Tory and Leo were having their weird deadly adventures heart-to-heart, Sapphire was squinting up at the sky. “Does the sun look dim to anyone else?” she asked.

All of us looked up. I didn’t look directly at the sun because I like my eyes to not be charcoal, but what I could see at the edge of my vision did look dim, almost grey.

“Uh, little bit, yeah,” Hi said.

Sapphire looked towards the body. After a long moment, her eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“Oh no,” Leo said. “Why ‘oh no’?”

“She wasn’t a mortal,” Sapphire breathed. “She’s a demigod.”

* * *

A demigod war meeting is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Hi, Tory, Ben, Coop and I were in the corner of the third floor of my house trying to stay out of the way of the shouting match going on through something called an Iris Message, which is basically a video call via magic rainbow. Actually, Hi, Ben and I were seeing it as a video call, because magic.

Yeah, magic. I’m not going to get used to it any time soon.

The group of demigods on the other side of the IM were sitting around what looked like a ping-pong table. All of them (except for one kid who was sleeping with his head on the table) were watching while a pale, dark-haired boy shouted back and forth with Sapphire. I thought that he was Nico, but the introductions had happened very quickly and included a lot of names. He and Sapphire had started talking in English, switched to Ancient Greek, and were now speaking in a sort of dry hissing that sent shivers down my spine.

“Enough!” a blonde woman who I was pretty sure was named Annabeth yelled over Sapphire and Nico. They immediately went silent. “Put a pin in whatever issues you two are having and rejoin the group. We have an actual problem to solve,” the woman said.

Sapphire blushed and looked down at her feet. “Sorry. What were you saying, Mark?”

Mark tossed a gold coin to the girl sitting across the table from him before turning back to the IM. “I said we should just track him. Let’s use magic or something, track him down, and end this.”

The pronoun game was referring to Jeremy Asher, by the way.

“Lou Ellen? Amber?” Annabeth asked.

The girl who’d caught the coin looked thoughtful. “I’d need his hair or blood, but I could jury-rig something using family connections. His mom is alive, right? Because godly blood will light up half the country.”

“His mom was alive,” the black-haired man sitting next to Annabeth said. “Chris tracked her down after we got the news that he’d escaped. She’s been dead almost a week.”

All of us were silent.

“Well, that doesn’t look good,” one of the pair of identical men at the end of the ping-pong table said.

“Where?” Tory asked. All eyes turned towards her. “Where did his mom live?” she clarified.

“Nebraska,” Annabeth said.

“So he escaped from L.A., probably went to Nebraska, and then ended up here in less than two weeks,” Tory said. “How?”

Annabeth frowned. “The Grey Sisters extended their service to California. They could have taken him that far in a day or two, and that’s assuming the door he used to leave the Underworld opened in California. For a place that’s meant to keep people in, the Underworld has a lot of ways out. No offence.”

“None taken,” Nico said. “Sapphire and I are pretty sure our sister, not Hazel, the ghost goddess, we’re pretty sure he’s working with her.”

“Graphic dreams, zero out of ten, would not recommend,” Sapphire added.

Lou Ellen sighed. “She moves her door. If he’s using it to get around he could literally be anywhere and tracking spells aren’t going to help.”

Amber shook her head. “Yeah, I’ve got nothing. I’ll ask around, but I think tracking would need some sort of sympathetic magic. I’m not great at that. We could send a pillar of fire after him.”

“But I’m not powerful enough for that,” Sapphire said.

Oh, yeah. Sapphire had fire magic, apparently, which had nothing to do with Hades being her dad. I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole only-one-twin-is-half-god thing.

“Any other ideas?” Annabeth asked.

“Curse him,” a blond boy said grimly. Nearly all of the demigods looked at him with wide eyes. Only Nico, Sapphire, and a brown-haired woman seemed unsurprised.

“I’m with Will,” the brown-haired woman said. “Aren’t there some long-distance curses you could put on him, Lou Ellen?”

“Uh, probably,” Lou Ellen said. “I’d have to check Mom’s grimoire. I haven’t done much cursing lately.”

“Do it,” Nico said.

Annabeth looked around the table and through the IM at us. “Any less drastic ideas?”

“Why does it matter?” Leo asked. “We’re going to kill him anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are now caught up to what's posted on fanfiction.net. This is all I have written, so further updates are going to be slow in coming.


	15. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

_‘I don’t like the idea of being accessories to murder,’_ Hi said. _‘Aren’t we supposed to be the good guys?’_

 _‘I don’t like it either,’_ Tory admitted, _‘but we’re not in charge here.’_ She eyed the war meeting that was still going on without anyone objecting to Leo’s statement of intent to murder. I was also in the “don’t want to kill anyone” camp, but the more the demigods talked about Jeremy Asher the more I felt like maybe he deserved it.

Scary thoughts, I has them.

Ben cleared his throat. “Why do you need a dozen Happy Meals?”

Happy Meals? Obviously I’d missed something during Hi and Tory’s tête-à-tête.

Nico looked at Ben and raised an eyebrow. “To summon the dead, obviously.”

“I think that’s only obvious to you,” the blond, Will, said. “Most people don’t use McDonald’s for necromancy.” Nico just shrugged.

“Why are _we_ summoning the dead?” I asked.

“We have a dead demigod,” Sapphire said quietly. “We know her name. When Nico summons her, we can ask her what happened.”

Will’s jaw tightened and the hand he was resting on the ping-pong table curled into a fist. Nico touched his arm gently and said something so quietly that even I couldn’t catch it, though that could have been because of the IM. Whatever he said was enough to help Will relax, but only a little.

“We’ll get the food and drink,” Amber said. “Will pizza work?”

Nico nodded. “I’ll organize things with the detective. He’ll probably want to be there, right?” It took me a moment to realize that he was talking to me.

“Yeah, probably,” I said. “You know, following the law and all that.”

Several of the demigods scoffed. “‘Follows the law’ and ‘son of Mercury’ don’t go together,” Mark muttered.

The sleeping blond boy made a snuffling sound. Then he sat straight up and shouted something in Ancient Greek.

All of the other demigods went silent.

“Schist,” the black-haired man next to Annabeth said.

“That’s a little tame, don’t you think?” Lou Ellen asked. She looked shell-shocked, and she wasn’t the only one.

“What did he say?” Tory asked.

Annabeth pursed her lips. “The goddess of ghosts, somehow, found out that we’re all working against her and she convinced Zeus to throw Apollo off Olympus.”

That seemed like a non sequitur, but I’m not a god. Maybe it made perfect sense if you were the king of Olympus.

“Apollo is being stripped of his powers right now,” the formerly sleeping boy said. “Zeus is making him mortal.”

“Like that time he was a shepherd?” Leo asked.

Annabeth nodded. “Likely with the same requirements. History does tend to repeat itself.”

That sounded like a polite way of saying that Zeus was lazy and uncreative. I’m not saying that it was, I like not being struck by lightning thankyouverymuch, but it could have been.

“Styx,” Amber said. “How much do you want to bet that something’s come up in the Underworld that needs Hades’ undivided attention?”

“No bet,” Will said through gritted teeth.

Annabeth sighed. “There go our allies.”

“Well, we usually do things on our own, don’t we?” Mark said. “Percy,” he scowled at the black-haired man, “beat my dad in sword fight. We don’t need Olympians to fight a minor goddess.”

“That really doesn’t answer my question about who her father is,” Sapphire said.

The tension that had been growing between the demigods on the other side of the IM disappeared.

Percy frowned. “Who who’s father is?”

“My evil possibly-only-half-sister,” Sapphire said. “Nico, when will you and Jordan be here?”

“Midnight,” Nico said. “Well, after sunset at least. Midnight would be better.”

“One in the morning would be better,” Lou Ellen said.

The rest of the IM was spent on a discussion of magic and necromancy that went completely over my head. It ended when a horn sounded on the demigods’ side and they quickly said goodbye before Annabeth waved her hand and somehow ended the call.

“Midnight?” Tory asked.

“Midnight,” Leo confirmed. “Hey, sneaking out at night. Not something we’ve done before.”

“Not something we’ve needed to do before,” Amber said.

Tory, Hi, Ben and I looked at each other. We’d done a lot of sneaking out without our parents knowing about it.

Sapphire frowned. “Where are we going to get pizza?”

Tory wanted to watch Nico raise the dead. Because of course she did. None of us tried to talk her out of it. Hi, Ben and I all knew better than that. Amber, Leo and Sapphire were too busy trying to figure out how they could get enough pizza and pop to Morris Island to fill a grave.

“Maybe we should just use McDonald’s,” Leo said. Amber and Sapphire agreed.

“I can go buy, like, twelve orders of fries,” Ben said. “I’ve got a boat. It won’t take long.” He arranged to meet us on the other side of Morris Island from our little community once the rest of us managed to slip away. Well, the rest of us minus Hi. His mom was in total freak-out mode. Getting her to let him stay at my house until dinner had taken lawyer-level negotiation. No way was she going to let him out of her sight for at least a week.

“We shouldn’t be going anywhere alone,” Amber said. “I’m not saying Asher can teleport, but he got out to Loggerhead somehow.”

“And you guys are mortals,” Leo added. “I am saying that he can kill you before you even know he’s there.”

I was pretty sure we would know he was there. The smell of person is hard to hide if you don’t know you should be hiding it. We were probably all stronger than him, but that wouldn’t help us in a fight. We didn’t have experience with sword fighting or whatever other weapons Asher might have. LARPs unfortunately don’t teach you how to fight for your life against a son of Ares.

“We could split up, a little? I don’t like that idea, but I also don’t like boats.” Sapphire frowned.

Ben grimaced. I elbowed him. “That’s not a dig against your ride, Blue. She’s a child of the Underworld, not the sea god.”

Amber sighed. “So what are we going to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for how non-linear this chapter is. I don't know where my head is right now.


	16. Sapphire XVI

Neither Shelton nor any of his friends had hyperventilated or passed out on account of her “the gods are real” speech, so Sapphire was calling everything okay on that front and moving on. They’d finally agreed that Amber and Ben would go get supplies, with Amber acting as an eye in the sky. Amber had flown out the window after dinner at the Devers house. Sapphire, Leo and Shelton were waiting for their chance to slip away so they could go dig a grave.

Sapphire looked at her aunt, uncle and parents. Uncle Nelson was laughing at something Dad had said, but Sapphire knew enough veteran demigods to see that his smile was strained. Mom met her gaze. She’d been sneaking looks at Sapphire and Amber all through dinner, like she was checking to make sure that they were still there. Amber had needed to fake a headache to get out of the room. Somehow, telling Mom and Dad that they were going to help a demigod homicide detective track down a demigod murderer who’d almost killed Sapphire her first summer at Camp and no-we-didn’t-tell-you-about-that-because-Sapphire-does-like-being-able-to-leave-the-house was starting to seem like a better idea than it had been three hours ago.

Styx.

_“One of us should stay here,”_ Sapphire said quietly, despite the fact that Leo was the only other person in the room who spoke Ancient Greek.

Leo stopped looking out the window and turned to her. _“Do you think so?”_

Sapphire nodded, hugging the throw pillow she’d taken off the couch before they sat down. _“He could come back.”_ Asher obviously knew where they were. If he decided to deviate from the recreation he seemed to be doing, five mortals versus a son of Ares backed by an Underworld goddess didn’t have odds in favour of the good guys, even with Mom and Aunt Lorelei’s childhood kendo training and the small spells Amber thought Sapphire didn’t know she had taught Richie.

Actually, maybe the odds were better than she’d thought. She still didn’t want to take the risk. Demigod versus demigod was safer. 

_“It will have to be me,”_ Leo said with some reluctance. _“You can leave the house more easily.”_

Shadow travel did tend to make sneaking out easier, not that Sapphire had ever snuck out before. That mishap with the not-Lycaon’s werewolves didn’t count. That had been an accident.

Sapphire faked a yawn and leaned against Leo. He put an arm around her. She desperately wanted to stay like that, but she knew that the feelings of safety and warmth were only temporary. None of them would really be safe until Asher was dead.

_“I hate this,”_ she murmured.

_“So do I,”_ Leo said.

After a few more fake yawns, Sapphire excused herself, saying that she was going to go to bed. Instead, she sat on the bed in Shelton’s room and waited. Shelton knocked on the door a few minutes later.

“Leo isn’t coming with?” Shelton asked.

Sapphire shook her head. “Just us.” She pulled at the shadows in Shelton’s room and let them pool around her feet. “Shadow Travel Express to the end of the road, now boarding.”

* * *

The moon had risen by the time they reached the other side of the island. They’d walked there from the beach they would have just been able to see from the end of Shelton’s driveway. Shadow travel would have been faster, but walking was less tiring. Nico, Jordan, Amber and Ben were already waiting a few metres from where the earth dissolved into sand. They were standing out of the way of the shower of earth being thrown out of the hole in the ground.

“Skeletons?” Sapphire asked. Nico nodded. Sapphire grimaced. It was less work for the rest of them, but physical necromancy wasn’t her favourite thing. At least it was just skeletons and not zombies.

Amber made introductions before asking, “Where’s Leo?”

“He stayed behind in case Asher shows up,” Sapphire said lightly. Her hand curled around one of the plentiful shadows.

“Where’s Tory?” Ben asked.

“She’s on her way,” Shelton said. He quickly added, “I saw her letting Coop out when we left.”

“Sure,” Amber said. She turned to Nico. “How do we do this?”

Nico snapped his fingers and the two skeletons digging the grave climbed out of the hole with their shovels. “Thank you for your service. You may go.” The skeletons fell apart and the bones and the shovels were swallowed by the ground. “Add the offerings to the hole.”

Ben grumbled something, but he and Amber took a dozen or so containers of fries out of the McDonald’s bags at their feet and poured their contents into the grave. Amber topped it off with a litre of generic soda. Tory jogged up to them with Cooper beside her just as Amber was shaking the last drops out of the bottle.

“Sapphire, draw. Everyone else, stand back,” Nico ordered. He drew his own sword while Sapphire twisted her ring and unsheathed her two Stygian iron blades. Then Nico began chanting in Ancient Greek. _“Let the dead taste again. Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember.”_

The air grew cold. Sapphire shifted her stance as fog began to gather on the other side of the grave. Dozens of glowing souls moved about in the fog, inching their way towards them. Sapphire moved closer to the fog and raised her swords to keep them back.

_“Memories, rise from the grave. Rise from the kingdom of my father,”_ Nico continued. _“By my power and by my name, Laurel Swan, daughter of Apollo, show yourself!”_

One soul came forwards, a golden star clad in a flimsy form. Sapphire let it pass. The soul knelt at the edge of the grave and scooped handfuls of soggy fries into its mouth. When it stood, the piercing blue eyes of Laurel Swan met Nico’s gaze. The ghost tucked her long blonde hair behind her ear.

Jordan took a step towards the grave and the ghost. “Laurel Swan, we have questions for you.”


	17. Sapphire XVII

Laurel Swan was sixteen. She was a Greek daughter of Apollo. She had a sonic singing voice that made her not a girl to mess with. Asher kept her mouth taped shut while he drained her blood.

Laurel was more than happy to answer all of Jordan’s questions about how she died. Sapphire was sure that all of them could feel how badly the girl wanted vengeance, even Shelton and Ben.

“He took me to a place that looked like a warehouse,” Laurel said. “There were concrete walls and this big old rusted crane. There was a window but no sunlight.” If there had been sunlight she wouldn’t be dead.

“Do you know how long you were there?” Jordan asked.

Laurel frowned. “It was...I remember feeling two sunrises before he made me bleed out. He used medical tubing and a needle, like we use for blood drives at Camp.”

“We have blood drives?” Sapphire whispered.

“During the year,” Nico whispered back.

The spirits in the fog behind Laurel began chattering. A few surged forward, perhaps sensing that they were distracted. They weren’t. Nico and Sapphire brandished their blades and the spirits retreated. Nico caught Sapphire’s eye and grimaced. Sapphire pursed her lips. They couldn’t keep this up forever.

Laurel was still talking about the warehouse. The first girl Asher had killed had been there too, but Laurel didn’t know her name. Sapphire tried to block out her description of how Asher cut out the other girl’s lungs in front of her. It didn’t work.

“Was there anyone else there?” Jordan asked.

Laurel shook her head. “Just me and him and her.” 

Three girls had been killed last time, a daughter of Boreas, a daughter of Apollo and a daughter of Demeter. If Asher was doing what it looked like he was doing, another girl was in danger.

Nico started chanting again to try to calm the spirits that were becoming more and more restless. Finally, Jordan thanked Laurel and Nico was able to send all the souls he’d summoned back to the Underworld.

“Was that useful?” Nico asked. “Because if it wasn’t I’m taking Sapphire back to Camp with me.”

Sapphire sheathed her swords and crossed her arms. “Nico, you’re my brother, I love you, but you’re not the boss of me.”

Amber sighed. “Can you not do this right now? It’s almost midnight.” She looked up at the sky and the big, bright moon almost directly above them. “Actually, it’s past midnight.”

Jordan put away his notes. “That was useful. I just have to figure out how to get people out looking for that warehouse.”

The possible solutions Sapphire could come up with for that problem were “don’t” and “very carefully”. One son of Ares with some magic and likely multiple other weapons plus a goddess on his side was not something she’d want to risk unsuspecting mortals going up against, even if the police somehow had higher calibre weaponry. Asher was a son of Ares. He’d be able to use any weapon against them and he wasn’t restricted to demigod weapons. Sapphire wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to forge his own version of Backbiter. He certainly had enough blood on his hands to manage it.

“I’ll help,” Nico said. Then he yawned.

“Nope,” Amber said. “We’re all going to go home and get some sleep.” She pointed at Nico. “You’re coming with us.”

Nico didn’t even make it through his protest before he yawned again.

“We’ve got room,” Shelton said. He eyed Ben. “You can crash at my place too, Blue.”

Ben muttered something that was probably a thank you. He looked at Tory, who narrowed her eyes back at him. Sapphire didn’t know if she was imagining it, but Tory’s green eyes seemed to take on a very blue tinge. They almost looked like they were glowing. They weren’t actually glowing, of course. Human eyes didn’t glow unless there was magic involved. Sapphire wasn’t Hazel or a child of Hecate, but she knew what magic felt like and there wasn’t any coming from Tory.

Amber used earth magic to fill the hole in the ground while the rest of them made sure that there wasn’t any garbage from the food and drink lying around. The dryads and satyrs would have words if they found out about any littering.

“Do you need a ride home?” Sapphire asked Jordan. She was pretty sure that if she and Nico worked together they’d be able to get him back to the mainland without anyone getting lost or collapsing from exhaustion.

Jordan smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a son of Mercury; I’ve got a few tricks.”

When they started walking back to the houses, Sapphire was entirely unsurprised to look back to where Jordan had been standing and see that he had disappeared. The four locals led the way, with Coop running ahead a hundred metres before doubling back and repeating the run. Just watching him was making Sapphire tired. Did all wolfdogs have that much energy?

“Where do you think that warehouse is?” Tory asked, looking over at Ben and Shelton.

Shelton tugged on his earlobe. “Uh, Tory? Remember how Ben and I couldn’t hear anything the ghost was saying because of magic?”

“Oh, right,” Tory said. “I forgot.”

Amber elbowed Sapphire. “Hey, are you listening to me?”

Sapphire shook her head and turned her attention from eavesdropping to her sister. “Sorry. What?”

“I asked if you think Lou Ellen will be able to track a place,” Amber said. “And before you say anything about how the only magic you know is setting things on fire, I’d like to remind you that you read.”

Sapphire definitely hadn’t been thinking about pleading ignorance via magical specialty. Really.

“If you’re talking about the warehouse, there’s probably enough blood there that she could figure something out,” Sapphire said. “Lou Ellen is scary creative.” And, no, she wasn’t only saying that because of the Halloween in July prank they’d pulled with the Hermes kids last summer.

Lou Ellen still wouldn’t tell anyone how she’d made that dragon skeleton.

Amber nodded slowly. “I’ll IM Brooklyn House in a few hours, see if they have any...Oh Styx.”

“What?” Sapphire followed Amber’s gaze to the back of Aunt Lorelei and Uncle Nelson’s house.

Their parents were standing in the doorway.

Styx.


	18. Sapphire XVIII

Sapphire, Amber, Leo and Nico were in so much trouble, and Amber wasn’t helping them get out of it.

“What were you thinking?” Dad demanded.

“We were thinking that you would act exactly like this!” Amber said.

Amber and Dad were facing off in the middle of the living room. Amber had her arms crossed and a steely glare on her face. Mom hadn’t gotten involved yet, so things weren’t so bad. Aunt Lorelei and Uncle Nelson were watching with a mix of confusion and resignation. Sapphire, Leo and Nico were in their direct line of sight on the couch, but Shelton and Ben had managed to hide by the door to the kitchen. Sapphire wasn’t at all annoyed by how lucky they were not to have a high chance of getting drawn into the argument. 

“I’m your father. Of course I’m going to stop you from chasing a serial killer,” Dad said.

“We can handle it,” Amber argued. “We were handling it!”

“Do you ever feel like we have seriously skewed points of view?” Sapphire asked quietly. “Because I’m getting that feeling.”

“Give it a minute. It’ll go away,” Nico said.

Sapphire waited. Nico was right. Now she felt like their lives were seriously messed up. Which other people would have gone to raise the dead at midnight to catch a killer? Then again, Sapphire already knew that none of them were well-adjusted. That came as a package with having gods as parents. Daddy issues starting a war, anyone?

“Leaving the house without telling us is not handling anything,” Dad said. “What if someone had gotten hurt? What would you have done?”

“Nectar, ambrosia, first aid,” Amber said. “We’re nearly adults, not babies.”

“Responsible adults would have told us what they were planning,” Dad said.

“You wouldn’t have let us do what we were planning,” Amber said.

Of course they wouldn’t have. Mom and Dad were good parents who didn’t make their kids go on dangerous quests.

Sapphire hid a yawn behind her hand. How much longer was this going to last? It was late and she was actually tired enough to sleep properly for once. Leo put an arm around her and she leaned against him. She could rest her eyes for a minute until it was her turn to be scolded.

She fell asleep a second later.

* * *

The Underworld was having a beach clean-up on the River Styx. Souls from the Fields of Punishment were digging diplomas, baby pacifiers and other discarded dreams out of the bank of bones while the Backstreet Boys proclaimed that they were back from the speakers of a boom box further up the riverbank. Two of the Furies were overseeing the efforts, herding grumbling souls with cracks of their flaming whips. That was how Sapphire knew they were from Punishment. Asphodel residents wouldn’t be moving with so much awareness and an Elysium beach clean-up wouldn’t have the Furies in attendance. Hades and a man with a clipboard dressed in jeans and a Camp Half-Blood T-shirt were standing a few metres behind the boom box. Hades was scowling.

“The paperwork for the geothermal power expansion has gone through,” Clipboard Man said.

“Wonderful,” Hades said flatly. “Make sure Daedalus knows he can start building whenever he’s ready.”

“Will do.” Clipboard Man made a note. Then he cleared his throat. “So, I know I’m not supposed to take sides but—”

“Zagreus,” Hades said in a tone of warning.

The man—god—standing next to him held up his hands. Now that he wasn’t looking down at his clipboard, Sapphire could see that Zagreus had the same eyes as Hades, the same curve of his chin, the same sharp cheeks. It was like looking at a younger version of her father.

“I like your kids, Dad,” Zagreus said. “They don’t deserve what the world does to them. Except for, you know, World War Two, Nazis.”

“Yes, I know,” Hades said. He eyed his son, Sapphire’s (half?) brother. “Is there a point you would like to make?”

Zagreus threw his clipboard down. It melted into shadows among the bones. “Yes, yes I would. You’re being controlled, Dad, and you’re not fighting it. This is your kingdom, not Zeus’s or Melinoe’s. The Underworld isn’t a democracy.”

One of the Furies screeched and tripped a spirit that was trying to run in the direction of Charon’s ferry. Judging by the cuts on their skin, they were of the running-through-thorns-while-listening-to-X-music type. 

“I am aware,” Hades said. “I’m protecting my children.”

“No, you aren’t! You’re rolling over and taking what Melinoe throws at you to stop you from protecting them,” Zagreus said.

If literally anyone else had said that, Sapphire was sure Hades would have vaporized them. Instead, he raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting I follow Apollo’s example?”

Zagreus winched. “No. A world of no. You do your thing, not anyone else’s. And don’t leave me, Macaria and Mom to run the Underworld on our own. It won’t go well.”

A small smile flashed across Hades’s face, too quick for Sapphire to be sure she’d actually seen him smiling.

“I’m sure you’d manage,” Hades said.

Zagreus looked terrified at the thought. If Sapphire was remembering her Camp Half-Blood mythology lessons correctly, he was the god who oversaw Elysium and rebirth, which mostly included partying and party planning. The idea of doing any other work was probably a nightmare, because gods tended to be like that about their portfolio. Or maybe he just didn’t want to do more paperwork.

The Furies cackled again. Neither god seemed to pay any attention.

“I’d really rather not,” Zagreus said.

Another fleeting smile crossed Hades’s face. “It’s unlikely to come to that. If someone wanted to find a killer, all they’d have to do is follow the wolves.” He looked at Sapphire.

“Follow the wolves?” Zagreus repeated. He followed their father’s gaze and his eyes widened. “Oh, of course. Follow the wolves. No problem. That’s all they’d have to do. Which wolves?”

Hades turned back to his son. Before either of them could say anything more, the scene became blurry. The Underworld smeared around her like a chalk drawing and Sapphire woke up.


	19. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

Ben and I were attempting not to be noticed while Amber and Uncle Harrold argued. It wasn’t too difficult since everyone was focused on the argument, but if my parents caught sight of us I was sure that we’d end up in the hot seat next.

Look, the Virals have done dangerous things. Like, a lot of dangerous things. I’m not saying my parents know about all of them, but they probably should have expected that if a dead girl showed up on our front lawn my friends and I were going to end up getting involved. They’re smarter than me. That wouldn’t stop them from grounding me for life, but they really should have expected it.

_‘This is actually kind of impressive,’_ Ben said. _‘I don’t think they’ve stopped to breathe once.’_

_‘Sure. Impressive.’_ I realized I was tugging on my earlobe and made an effort to keep both my hands away from my head. Hey, I know what my nervous habits are.

“We had two children of Hades,” Amber said. “The ghosts were under control.”

Mom interrupted Uncle Harrold’s retort. “Ghosts?”

Amber and Uncle Harrold turned to look at her. Amber blinked.

“We are all on the same page about the ‘the gods are real and they have kids and those kids have issues’ thing, right?” Amber asked after a moment. “Because if we aren’t, can we table all of this until after we’ve all gotten some sleep? I don’t think the stars I’m seeing are a magic thing.”

No one got a chance to answer. Sapphire, who’d fallen asleep around the time the argument had started getting repetitive, suddenly woke and sat bolt upright.

“Follow the wolves,” Sapphire said. “Demigod dream. Father said to follow the wolves.”

“Helpful,” Nico said. “What wolves?”

Sapphire shrugged. “Whisper’s pack?”

“Montana?” Amber suggested with a grimace. The demigods in the room mimicked her expression. 

_‘Could be us,’_ Ben said.

It was my turn to grimace. Given our luck, Hades was probably talking about the Virals.

Leo rubbed his forehead. “So, the usual cryptic stuff. Great.”

Nico muttered something in Italian (?) that I was pretty sure wasn’t polite. “I agree with Amber. We need sleep.”

“You should have thought about that before going to summon ghosts in the middle of the night.” Aunt Mariko sighed. “Go to bed. We’ll finish this conversation in the morning.”

Ben and I wasted no time in escaping to the third floor. Richie was already asleep, sprawling on the inflatable mattress that was meant to be able to hold two people. That wasn’t a surprise. Leo and I had been sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor because Richie wouldn’t take up less space.

“We’ve got another sleeping bag,” I said quietly.

Ben grunted and passed out on my sleeping bag. Thanks, buddy. Real helpful.

Leo and Nico didn’t join us until after I’d gotten the third sleeping bag out and had been staring at it for a least a minute. The thing that I was sure I’d forgotten became obvious when I realized that there were only two available sleeping bags.

“We’ve slept in worse places,” Leo said when I offered to sleep on the floor. “Get some rest, Shelton. We’re in the home stretch now.”

* * *

You know how people say things will look better after a good night’s sleep? They’re not wrong. By the time I got downstairs in the morning, Mom, Dad, Uncle Harrold and Aunt Mariko were sitting at the kitchen table calmly discussing the security measures of the Underworld with Nico.

Okay, it was still an argument, but it was a calm argument. That was better than last night.

“What’s that about werewolves?” I asked.

Nico scowled. “Human-monster hybrid spirits are the worst. We’re not letting any of them out of the Underworld. End of discussion.”

I blinked. “Okay. Is there coffee?”

“There’d better be coffee,” Amber grumbled. She pushed past me and made a beeline for the coffee maker. Lucky for all of us, it was half full.

“What wolves could your father have been talking about?” Uncle Harrold asked.

“Metaphorical wolves?” Nico suggested. “You couldn’t have been any less cryptic, Dad? I’m this close to wishing for a prophecy.”

“Let’s not,” Amber said. “Morning, Saph.”

Sapphire grumbled wordlessly and eyed Amber’s cup of coffee. I handed her the bowl of Lucky Charms I’d poured for myself. I didn’t want to see what happened if she got her hands on coffee. Sapphire gave another grumble that might have been a thank you.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

It was another fifteen minutes until everyone was mostly awake and eating breakfast. Sapphire kept nearly falling asleep in her cereal, but she’d upgraded from grumbles to full words.

“So, have we got a plan?” Leo asked.

“Do we ever have a plan?” Amber retorted.

“No plan survives first contact,” Sapphire said.

Nico looked up from the single piece of toast on the plate in front of him. “Find Asher’s warehouse. Hopefully he’s there or he left something behind that we can use.”

Leo added another piece of toast to Nico’s plate. “And then?”

Nico said something in Ancient Greek. He looked back at his plate and frowned.

Aunt Mariko cleared her throat. “What’s that for those of us who don’t speak a dead language?”

“We catch him and lock him in Father’s dungeon,” Sapphire said. “Percy’s the only person who’s escaped from there, and that’s because Nico broke him out.”

None of the demigods mentioned anything about killing Asher. I kept my mouth shut. On the other side of the kitchen, Ben did the same. That was definitely something none of the parents in the room needed to learn about.

“Percy?” Mom asked.

“Our cousin,” Nico said. He was still frowning at his doubled breakfast.

“The greatest hero of our generation,” Leo said. “There was a vote.”

I did a double take. “Was there actually a vote?”

Leo nodded. “Year-round campers get bored quickly.”

I had no trouble believing that. Leo had three tiny wind-up metal dogs in front of him that he’d made over the course of one meal. The campers probably ran low on things to do after a month.

“Tory and Hi are here,” Sapphire said. “Oh, and Cooper. Canine souls are weird.” The doorbell rang ten seconds after she spoke. Handy, that.

Ben and I went to answer the door in case Tory or Hi had something to tell us that they didn’t want to share outside the pack. It was a good thing that we didn’t make bets on it, because Tory would have lost me five bucks. She barely waited for the door to close.

“I know where the warehouse is,” Tory said.

“Please tell her we’re not going after the demigod serial killer,” Hi begged.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Why would I waste my time doing that?”

Hi’s shoulders slumped. “We’re going after the demigod serial killer, aren’t we?”

“Probably,” I said.

Hi groaned. “Why is this my life?”


	20. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

“You’re not coming with,” Nico said.

Tory glared at him. She’d apparently been awake since four looking at maps and satellite images to find possible warehouse locations. I could have told Nico that trying to argue with her on two hours of sleep was especially futile, but I was a little busy helping Sapphire run damage control with my parents. The half god thing had finally sunken in and they weren’t taking magic for an answer.

“Baby mortal with two parents plus baby goddess with two parents equals baby demigod with four parents,” Sapphire said.

Dad frowned for a moment. “Okay, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Nelson,” Mom hissed.

Dad shrugged. “It does make sense, Lori. If my brother, your sister and the kids say that’s what’s happened, I say we should believe them.”

“Okay, great, glad we’re all agreed. Sapphire, your boyfriend’s head is on fire,” I said.

Mom and Dad were significantly distracted by the threat of the house burning down. While Leo blamed stress for activating his fire powers to avoid getting sprayed with the fire extinguisher, Ben and I brought Tory and Hi up to date on Hades’s hint.

_‘Do you think he means us?’_ I asked. _‘Ben thinks he means us.’_

_‘I didn’t say that,’_ Ben complained. _‘How would he know anyway?’_

_‘Well, we did talk about the virus and everything in the bunker a lot,’_ Hi said. _‘That was underground and Hades’s sphere of influence is underground.’_

So, a god eavesdropped on us on the off chance that we’d give him useful information to use as a cryptic hint. I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense considering that I’m related to his daughter but he couldn’t have disguised himself as a human to talk to us, or something else that wouldn’t increase my paranoia?

Then again, we didn’t talk to other people about the wolf thing. We’d narrowly missed getting locked up in a lab and experimented on. None of us wanted to risk anything about our powers getting back to those people.

_‘If he means us then maybe telling them where to find the warehouse is good enough?’_ Tory sounded disappointed. If I didn’t know that it was something her great-aunt did all the time, I might have wondered why she wanted to catch a serial killer so badly.

Richie came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and glaring at everyone. “Wha’s goin’ on?”

“Murder and mayhem,” Sapphire said. She patted out a flame that was lingering on Leo’s shoulder. “You’re not invited.”

Richie stared at Sapphire with a frown. “There’s not gonna be another war, is there?”

Sapphire’s expression softened. “I think we’ve had our share of wars.”

“You haven’t,” Richie said. “Reyna said you’re ‘untested in battle’.”

“When did you talk to Reyna and why were you talking about me?” Sapphire exclaimed.

Amber coughed. “Crush.”

There was a momentary delay before Richie blushed. Aunt Mariko smothered a smile.

Nico cleared his throat. “Can we focus? Tory, _you aren’t coming with_ but do you have any maps? Maybe some blueprints?”

Tory grimaced. “Not on me. Shelton could probably find some.”

Nico looked at me. “Can you?”

I nodded. It wouldn’t take long once I got my computer started up. Tory’s research had been very through.

“Shelton, maps and blueprints, printed out, not digital.” Nico turned to Leo and Sapphire. “Who do you want for backup?”

“Everyone?” Sapphire said. “Who can we get?”

“Percy and Annabeth want in,” Nico said. “So does Will. And Katie. And Lou Ellen. And Mark. And Piper. And Jason.”

Leo whistled. “That’s more people than you can shadow travel, isn’t it?”

“I can bring three people and still be able to fight,” Nico said.

“You’re kids,” Mom said. “Aren’t there adult demigods who could...handle this?”

From what I remembered, most of the people Nico had named were adults. Probably not much older than Leo, but still adults.

“I’ve fought in two wars,” Nico said. His tone left no room for argument.

“Will for sure,” Leo said. “We’re probably going to need a healer.”

Amber scoffed. Sapphire laughed once. I had a feeling that meant that needing a healer was standard operating procedure.

“If we’re going to be anywhere near the ocean I want Percy with us,” Amber said.

Nico narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re not coming with either.”

“What?” Amber glared back. “Of course I’m coming with.”

Nico said something about a moon god and starting an inter-pantheon conflict. Amber shot back with a point about how an alternate universe’s version of the god didn’t count and I had no idea what they were talking about after that.

“There are alternate universes now?” Hi asked while Nico and Amber’s argument was gaining momentum.

“Yeah. Amber got stuck in one for a few weeks last summer,” Leo said. “And there was this other guy who met the girl version of himself, I think? It’s like a fourth-hand rumour from the House of Life. And they say we’re weird.”

Slowly, Hi covered his face with his hands. He let out a whine that made Coop’s ears perk up.

“You okay, man?” Ben asked.

“Processing,” Hi said.

He wasn’t the only one. Couldn’t we go one day without getting our knowledge of the way the world works upended?

I decided to stop thinking about the suddenly real possibility of falling into alternate worlds before I needed to reboot my brain like Hi was.

“Shelton, could you work on finding those maps, please?” Sapphire asked. She was carefully watching Amber and Nico as they argued and jumped in when there was a pause. “Amber can be back-up for if everything goes to hell. If we’re all about to die then an inter-pantheon conflict is the least of our problems.”

Amber frowned. “Yeah, okay. That works.” She didn’t sound happy about it.

“Give me five minutes to see if you’ll be near water,” I said.

“I’ll send you everything I have,” Tory said. She got out her phone and went into the next room. Coop rose from his spot under the table and followed her.

Nico watched Coop leave. “Do you think we can get Percy to bring Mrs. O’Leary?”

I headed upstairs before I could figure out who Mrs. O’Leary was and why she would pass out on arrival.


	21. Shelton

**_Shelton_ **

It took me twenty minutes to find and print out all the maps, blueprints and useful looking photos I could find. When I got back downstairs, Amber and Sapphire were discussing methods for keeping Amber in contact with the rest of the group when they went after Asher. For some reason, most of them involved wax.

“The warehouse is about a quarter mile from the ocean,” I said. I put the papers I was carrying on the table.

“What’s that in real measurements?” Sapphire asked.

“About four hundred meters,” Amber said. “Is that close enough for Percy?”

All three demigods said it was.

“Will, Percy and Piper,” Nico said. “I’ll be back with them in ten minutes.”

He got up from his seat and disappeared. My eyes were telling me that he’d walked out the door, but I knew he’d actually shadow travelled. Aunt Mariko had mentioned something about being able to think her way around the Mist even though she couldn’t see through it. I guess that was what she was talking about.

Leo put his head down on the table, missing the line of wind-up dogs he’d made by a hair. “Have I mentioned how much I hate that we have to do this?”

Sapphire reached out a hand but froze before she touched Leo’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Amber said. “You don’t control Asher’s actions.”

“No, but I was born,” Sapphire said.

That didn’t sound good.

Aunt Mariko pursed her lips. “Tory, may I borrow your dog?”

Tory practically radiated confusion. “Uh, sure?” She coaxed Coop out from under the table.

“Sapphire, pet the dog,” Aunt Mariko said.

Sapphire robotically lowered her hand for Coop to sniff. Coop head-butted her fingers and demanded attention in the form of petting. Coop isn’t a therapy dog or anything like that but, as Hi would say, he’s the best boy. I could see Sapphire becoming less tense as he repaid petting with cuddles.

“I’m sorry,” Leo said. “I don’t want him to hurt you again.”

“He already has,” Sapphire said lightly. “But we’re going to stop him. And then I’m going to go to months of therapy. We still have Dr. Kessler’s number, right Mom? I liked her.”

Aunt Mariko nodded. “We do.”

“Does she work with groups?” Leo asked. “Because half of camp still has PTSD and all the therapists we find end up being monsters.”

That sounded like really bad luck.

“Doesn’t Camp Jupiter have therapists?” Amber asked.

Leo scoffed. “They’re Romans.”

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it was apparently enough of an answer for Amber. She made a sound of agreement and went back to moulding the wax she’d gotten from somewhere. It looked like she was making a bowl.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked.

“Hit hard, hit fast, rescue any hostages and don’t die,” Amber said.

Hi cleared his throat. “The ghost goddess is working with him, right? Does that mean you might have to fight ghosts?”

Sapphire scratched Coop behind his ears. “Almost certainly. And if they’re my sister’s Nico and I won’t be able to control them, but Piper should be able to.”

It wasn’t easy for me to make sense of the fight in the forest on Loggerhead with the Mist getting in the way but I was pretty sure Sapphire and Leo had been in a lot of trouble before Tory talked Katherine down. Was Katherine a ghost Sapphire should have been able to control?

“Well, you’re not going to be fighting anything without a good meal in you,” Dad said. “Out! Harrold and I need the kitchen to teach Richie to make Mom’s sweet potato casserole.”

Uncle Harrold grimaced. “We are not making sweet potato casserole, Nelson.”

We got out of the kitchen. I grabbed the maps. Leo swept his wind-up dogs off the table and into his tool belt.

When Nico got back with Percy, Will and Piper, everyone but Dad, Uncle Harrold and Richie was watching Amber and Sapphire test Amber’s wax ear. (It was supposed to be an ear, but I thought it still looked like a bowl.)

“Okay, so if you don’t talk too loud I can hear everything going on,” Amber said. “But the second you start talking it’s messaging function only.”

“We can work with that,” Leo said. “Will or Sapphire should wear it.”

“Wear what?” Will asked.

Sapphire peeled the layer of wax off the back of her ear and held it up. “Sympathetic magic ear. Amber hears whatever we hear and it doubles as a walkie-talkie.”

“Neat,” Will said. “Does it work when she’s bird?”

Piper looked at Amber with wide eyes. “You turn into a bird?”

“Long story,” Amber said.

Percy and Nico leaned over the printouts I’d spread on the coffee table. Their back and forth muttering of possible battle plans seemed to be the cue for the rest of the demigods to sit around the coffee table and start throwing out ideas.

“There are four entrances and eight of us,” Percy said. “We could split up into teams of two.”

“Eight of you?” Mom asked.

“Jordan and Olivia are on their way,” Percy said. “Teams, yay or nay?”

The answers I heard were split. Very split. Will changed from “yay” to “nay” halfway through the word.

Percy raked his fingers through his hair. “Okay, not teams of two. Any other suggestions?”

Hi hesitantly raised his hand. “I know I’m not exactly battle ready, but what if you blocked some of the doors? You could melt them shut or something?”

Leo and Sapphire looked at each other. “That’s something we could do,” Leo said. Sapphire nodded.

“If we block the door on the roof we don’t have to worry as much about sending someone up there,” Piper said. “And the one on the side of the building looks like it shouldn’t take long to sabotage. How current are these pictures?”

I looked at Mom and Aunt Mariko. They were paying enough attention that I didn’t want to mention that I might have borrowed some stills from security cameras. “No more than a month old.”

Nico picked up one of the blueprints. “I have an idea.”


	22. Sapphire XXII

There was a big difference between having to fight off monsters that attacked you and planning an attack on a location. A monster attack was a high adrenaline, fast-paced, do or die situation. There wasn’t much time to think about what could go wrong or wallow in a feeling of impending doom. The same was not true of the planned invasion of Asher’s warehouse. It felt like there was nothing but time.

Sapphire had to force herself to finish her hot soba. Normally it was a comfort food, but since it was also how nectar tasted to her every bite reminded her of the battle that was coming. There was no way Asher was going down without a fight.

Next to her, Amber was eating with one hand and tracing hieroglyphics on the table with the other. At least her sister would be staying back. Sapphire wasn’t sure that hosting Khonsu for two weeks in an alternate universe counted as being an Egyptian god, but Melinoe would absolutely use it against them if she found out. She’d snitched on Apollo and gotten him punished for caring too much about his kids and their friends. An Egyptian god attacking a Greek goddess would have even further reaching consequences.

“Hey.” Amber tapped Sapphire’s ankle with her foot. “I can hear you worrying. Relax.”

Sapphire scoffed. Who was worrying? She wasn’t worrying.

Percy and Jordan had done a good job of reassuring the parents without totally lying. The last minute trying to talk them out of going that Sapphire had expected didn’t happen. Instead, Mom and Dad hugged her and Amber and told them to come back. Then Richie collided with Sapphire.

“Don’t die or I’ll go to the Underworld and drag you out,” Richie said. There was no joking tone to his voice. He absolutely would storm Hades’s castle to get his sisters back.

Sapphire smiled and ruffled her little brother’s hair. “Got it, no dying.”

* * *

The warehouse had four entrances: the door on the roof, a side door that led into a narrow alleyway, a window that looked out on the same alleyway, and a loading bay that was large enough for one transport truck. The window barely counted. Amber and Sapphire could maybe fit through it and Asher definitely wouldn’t be able to.

Amber and Olivia sealed the door on the roof and went to wait on a different building in case backup was needed while Leo and Sapphire melted the side door shut. Sapphire sensed a mortal and a demigod inside the warehouse. Then Percy and Nico led the rest of their team inside through the loading bay and the building almost immediately became a storm of too many souls to track.

“Lots of ghosts,” Sapphire said.

Leo nodded. After one more blast of white hot fire, they ran around the corner and drew their weapons. Leo went with a hammer. Sapphire chose her Stygian Iron swords. She wanted every bit of her Underworld power for this.

Their entrance went unnoticed by all of the living people in the building. Jordan disappeared carrying a girl with a bleeding head wound, warping space around him between one step and the next. Piper was holding back a swarm of ghost women dressed in white who seemed to be crying at what she was saying. A shadowy creature was occupying Nico and Will’s attention, swiping at them with four clawed hands. On the far side of the warehouse, Percy and Asher were battling with deadly slashes of bronze and a furious lack of quips.

“Can you help Piper?” Leo asked quietly.

Sapphire nodded. They moved to split up but had to stop when a dozen ghosts rose out of the floor in front of them. The bayonets on the ends of the ghosts’ rifles looked very solid and very sharp.

“Confederates,” Leo grumbled.

Confederates were the bad guys, right? So Sapphire didn’t feel bad when she parried the bayonet of the ghost charging at her and stabbed him in the chest. The ghost dissolved with a shriek.

The remaining Confederate ghosts were more organized. Six of them leveled their bayonets and charged. The other five backed up and started shooting. The bullets passed right through their comrades without harming them but Sapphire and Leo struggled to avoid being hit. Leo set himself on fire but the molten metal that didn’t splatter across his forge-proof clothing was only slightly less dangerous than the bullets. Sapphire was pretty sure part of her sleeve had been melted into her skin. Will was going to yell at them later.

Sapphire parried two bayonets. Shadows reached up from the ground and dragged one of the ghosts back beneath the earth, leaving her free to behead the other.

“Saph, shield!” Leo shouted.

That wasn’t a lot of information. Sapphire wove shadows together into a wall twice as tall as and a little bit wider than the bay door behind them. Leo dove behind it seconds before there was a series of explosions. Sapphire raised an eyebrow in a silent question, mindful of the wax stuck to the back of her ears.

Leo shrugged. “Ghost gunpowder explodes like the real thing.”

Actually, it looked like ghost gunpowder exploded more than real gunpowder because when Sapphire took the shield down several of the Confederate ghosts were missing hands. That did make it a bit easier for Sapphire to destroy them.

When all the Confederate ghosts were gone and nothing came to replace them, Sapphire returned to her original goal of banishing the ghosts surrounding Piper. Those ghosts had changed at some point. Their white dresses had become mildewed and Sapphire could see sunken eyes, rotting skin and several sets of claws. They weren’t crying anymore. All signs were pointing to imminent attack.

Sapphire didn’t risk pushing through the ring of Women in White (they looked like Women in White, if _Supernatural_ was anything to go by. Sapphire had to learn more about ghosts). She stopped behind one of the ghost women and met Piper’s eye.

“Why don’t we talk about why we’re here?” Piper said. “Let’s start with you, with the dead fish.”

The woman Piper pointed to had several dead fish tangled in her hair. The ghost hissed. “Where are my babies?”

Stories of Women in White often involved them killing their children, so Sapphire was going to guess the Underworld, probably Asphodel or maybe the Egyptians’ Field of Reeds. As Piper continued questioning the ghosts the likely filicide count went up. It made Sapphire wonder what Piper had said earlier that made them cry.

Then Percy and Asher crashed through the circle of ghosts with all the care of a bull in a china shop. Piper dodged. Sapphire stopped being nice (that was a stupid idea in the first place) and cut down three of the ghosts from behind while she got out of the way.

Not fast enough.

Another inch and Asher wouldn’t have been able to grab her arm and pull her in front of him. Percy stopped his sword a second before Riptide cut a matching scar into the other side of her face.

Asher was breathing hard but his hand didn’t shake as he held his sword to Sapphire’s throat. “What’s the plan now, Perseus Jackson?”

Sapphire went completely still.


	23. Sapphire XXIII

Asher was a son of Ares. Violence, brutality and war were in his blood. Battle strategy was not. When he’d grabbed Sapphire he’d twisted her arm painfully behind her back, causing her to drop her sword and making it so that even without his sword at her throat she wouldn’t have been able to escape without causing herself serious damage. His hand was around her wrist and her hand was pressed against his chest. Two of her fingers brushed the base of his throat.

‘Know your enemy’ was one of the first lessons they learned at Camp Half-Blood. That’s what monster assault techniques and mythology classes were all about. It seemed that Asher had forgotten.

Sapphire wasn’t wearing gloves.

The temperature behind Sapphire’s head dropped as she sent icy flames to engulf Asher’s neck. He yelled and pushed her away. She collided with Percy and they quickly had to navigate catching their balance without either of them getting stabbed. That didn’t stop the nearly black fire.

Asher dropped his sword and clutched at his throat with both hands. Sapphire had never used her purple fire of death on a human before. She watched with morbid fascination as he beat at the flames with hands that turned black where he touched them. Not burned, necrotic. Asher wasn’t dying all at once like a smaller animal or a monster would. Sapphire’s fire was literally killing him by inches.

The flames spread across Asher’s collarbone before he managed to smother all of them. They left behind skin and muscle that was as dead as the skin on his hands. His breathing was laboured and wheezing. That didn’t stop him from glaring at Sapphire and stepping towards her as if to launch another attack.

Mist of the kind that lingered around Melione’s cave rose from the ground, carrying with it the chill of the Underworld. It curled around Asher’s feet and he dissolved. It took less than a second for him to disappear.

“I didn’t know I could do that,” Sapphire croaked. 

Percy turned to her and his eyes widened. “Schist, Sapphire, your neck.”

Sapphire touched her fingers to her throat and they came away wet with blood. Huh. She hadn’t noticed Asher’s sword slicing open her skin as he tried to get away. That must have been a good blade.

One of the Women in White floated towards them. “Excuse me, have you seen my son?”

“Uh, no. Sorry,” Percy said. “Will, are you busy?”

“Little bit,” Will shouted back. “Nico, why did it grow another head?!”

“Because multi-headed monsters are the worst!” Nico said.

He wasn’t wrong.

“You were probably searching before you came here,” Piper said to the Women in White. “Go back to doing that.”

To Sapphire’s surprise, all of the remaining ghosts left the warehouse. Either Piper’s charmspeak was a lot stronger than the daughter of Aphrodite thought it was or Melinoe’s control over the ghosts had weakened. Sapphire was betting on the charmspeak option. Piper had talked her out of a panic attack (okay, multiple panic attacks) while she was disassociating, so controlling spirits who were nearly fully present must have been easy. Then again, Sapphire didn’t really know how charmspeak worked. That felt like an oversight.

“Sapphire, I’m going to stop the bleeding,” Percy said. “It’ll probably feel weird but all you have to do is breathe, okay?”

Sapphire didn’t make a sound. She felt a very faint prickling sensation in her neck but it wasn’t anything she’d call weird. 

Oh, she was disassociating now, wasn’t she?

Percy said to breathe. Breathing was good. She could do breathing.

There was a crash and then a loud whining of strained metal. A shadow carried Sapphire’s dropped sword back to her hand as she, Piper and Percy turned towards the noise. The four-armed, two-headed shadow ghost monster that Nico, Leo and Will were fighting scrambled insect-like across the floor. It didn’t move fast enough to avoid being crushed by the falling crane.

Nico walked over to the shadow splatter and poked it with his sword. “It’s dead, finally. Gods-damned fear eaters.”

Fear eaters were not on the standard list of monsters. Sapphire definitely needed a ghost identification handbook.

Predictably, the first thing Will did after Nico confirmed that all the ghosts were gone was scold Sapphire for getting her throat slit. Sapphire made sounds of agreement in all the right places and swallowed the nectar he gave her with only a little difficulty. While Will was getting it through her head that she’d come a hair’s breadth from dying, the others took a cursory look around the warehouse for anything Asher might have left behind. 

“Well, there’s a lot of blood,” Piper said.

“We should probably get Olivia in here,” Percy said. “None of us have the training for this.”

“You called?” Olivia asked.

Five war veterans and one daughter of Hades screamed. Olivia smirked.

“Gods of Olympus,” Percy said. “Only Underworld kids have a right to be that scary.”

“Seconded,” Sapphire said. “Where’s Amber?”

“On her way,” Olivia said. She reached into her bag and was suddenly crouching next to Piper to pry samples of dried blood off the floor.

If Olivia was humming while she collected forensic evidence, none of them mentioned it.

Amber arrived a few seconds after Olivia. She collided with Sapphire as she changed from bird to human. It took a while for Sapphire to convince her that she was fine. The blood drying on her skin probably wasn’t helping her case.

“I called Jordan,” Olivia said. “The girl’s fine and he’s on his way back here with a team, so it’s time for you to scram.”

Percy shot her a grin. “Got it, scramming. Let’s go, guys.”

* * *

Dad and Uncle Nelson had spent the afternoon stress baking. There were more than enough baked goods to satisfy demigod post-battle bottomless stomachs but there definitely wasn’t enough room for sixteen people and a wolfdog in the kitchen. Sapphire escaped to the third floor with a plate of cookies and volume one of a Red Hood comic series that she’d stolen from Shelton’s room. It wasn’t long before Leo joined her. He sat down next to her on the air-filled mattress she'd pushed against the wall.

“How are you doing?” Leo asked.

Sapphire shrugged. “Been better. Been worse.”

Leo made a sound of understanding and stole a cookie. Sapphire leaned closer to him. She didn’t mind running Underworld cold, but after the week they’d had the warmth radiating from Leo was more than welcome.

“Asher isn’t dead,” Sapphire said. “I almost killed him but he’s not dead.”

“Should I be the biggest cliché and ask how that makes you feel?” Leo asked.

“It’s only a cliché if you’re a psychiatrist.” Sapphire sighed. “I don’t want him to hurt anyone else. If I stop him, does it matter how I feel about it?”

Leo was probably the wrong person to ask. He’d never killed another demigod. (Percy had. So had Nico. Plenty of campers who’d fought in the Second Titan War had blood on their hands, but that was during a _war_.)

“It doesn’t have to be you,” Leo said. 

Sapphire shrugged again. That was true in theory but in practice? Gods, she didn’t know.

Leo broke the cookie he’d taken and offered half to her. She took it.

“So, Tory’s eyes totally glow sometimes, right?” Leo said. “Like, bright blue.”

“You saw that too?” Sapphire asked. “I thought I was imagining it. It’s not magic and she reads as human.”

Leo nodded. “Did you notice that when her eyes are glowing she and Shelton and their friends will make facial expressions that don’t make sense unless they’re having a totally different conversation?”

Now that he mentioned it.

“Coop is really expressive,” Sapphire said. She’d say he was more similar to Akio, the wolf who hung around the woods at Camp Half-Blood, than a normal canine, and nearly everyone at camp was convinced Akio was Apollo’s kid (long story).

“Your father said to follow the wolves to find a killer,” Leo said. “We listened to Tory and Shelton and we found a killer.”

They looked at each other. 

“You know,” Sapphire said. “Maybe we should double-check if someone’s written a book about them.”

They could also confront them, but that seemed kind of rude. They had tracked down a serial killer together.

They finished the last two cookies. Despite the sugar, it wasn’t long before Sapphire started to yawn.

“Will’s totally going to ground me if I keep reading instead of going to sleep, isn’t he?” Sapphire said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Only if he finds out,” Leo said.

The odds of Will not finding out were slim to none. Sapphire had been on the receiving end of his lack of sleep will kill you speech more times than she could count. On the other hand, if she tried to take a nap now there was a fairly good chance she’d crash and sleep through the night. If that happened Will wouldn’t have a good reason to use his disappointed doctor voice.

Also, her eyes were already closing.

“Guess I’ll sleep then,” Sapphire said.

Leo gave her a one-armed hug. “I’ll be here.”

“Night.” Sapphire rested her head on Leo’s shoulder and fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

FINIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next (and probably final) story in this series will start being posted in January 2021.


End file.
